or both truly I think he should answer best that saith faith is actus totius hominis the act of the whole man the mind to know the will to Consent and Embrace the affections to rejoyce in and desire as the Scripture saith faith is seated in the heart all the heart Faith must be a work brought into the heart by the hand of God for if faith should come in by its own forcible entry by opposition man would fight against it at every door or room and therefore it remains that it must come into the heart voluntarily the heart must be made willing and when it is so it sets open every door that it will not fight against any entry It is God that makes the whole soul willing to the entrance of faith into it Reas 7 Seventhly Saving faith always flows or proceeds from a vital principle a dead man performs no act of life and if faith be an act of life then this faith cannot be performed by a man that is dead that is by a natural man dead in sin and therefore he that makes a man to believe in Christ must first out a life into him see the Reason how it hangs together a spiritual dead man can no more put life into himself then a natural dead man this argument proves that Gods drawing a man to Christ is as it were the raising of him from the dead that mans believing in Christ is as much as a resurrection from the dead and proves that Gods drawing must goe before mans coming or believing the passive work of Conversion preceds that which is called active Conversion the one is Gods the act of raising the other is mans the act of turning to God I know not what can be said against it Reas 8 Eightly The greatest opposition that is made to the plantation of grace yet in the heart of man is made to faith temptations are soarest oppositions are strongest against faith because the soul and salvation lies at stake upon it the hinge that salvation hangs on being in this point therefore it hath more opposition by sin and the devil then any other grace I have prayed saith Christ to Peter that thy faith fail not Why not that thy love or thy fear or thy patience fail not because the greatest batteries of the devil are against faith and the taking of that fort would take all and therefore all those considerations that give such weight to faith in order to Salvation do also give weight to the reason I am now upon that a supernatural hand is that which must work and create faith in us Reas 9 Lastly I should as easily and willingly ascribe the whole work of mans conversion and regeneration his new birth and justification all to the power of man dead in sin as I would ascribe thereto faith in or coming unto Christ and so let God sit by as a looker on and behold what a fine thred the will of man spins throughout the whole webb of conversion regeneration and believing and let sinful man be suae fortunae faber the workman of his own fortune as they use to say and where then shall be the commendation and praise of Glorious grace sure there will be the commendation of the will of man and not of the will of God and so all things will come at last result to this which the Serpent said to our first parents ye shall be as Gods if faith and coming to Christ be in the power of man you will be as God for not he that supplies the object of faith but he that supplies the power and act of faith the will and deed to believe sits highest in Glory the Reason is that notwithstanding the object of Faith revealed man might perish but he that gives me the act of believing and makes good that cannot perish but must be saved Let the evidence of these Reasons quiet and settle you upon this point And Serm. 21 Use 1 FIrst Make those men jealous and suspicious of their Faith that find an easie quiet and undisturbed faith that have believed time out of mind as they say ever since they could remember and never had â—â—sence and feeling of this drawing work of God without which faith cannot be wrought It is true I believe that regenerating grace steals into many a one even in their inâ—â—ncy before they can reflect upon themselves for this faith is not known without reflection and before they know who it is that calls Samuel Samuel and they have cause of praise afterward that God marked them for his sheep while they were but Lambs this may be and therefore I will not say that this point ties these men to know or to find out the time of the first working and plantation of faith in them But ordinarily those that are of age do hear the noise or voice of this wind when it blows though it be a secret work and thou knowest not whence it comes nor whither it goes yet they feel a work whereby they are drawn to believe in Christ and in every man ordinarily there are inward bickerings temptations troubles for sin fears all which do make faith hard and thereby as Israel coming out of Aegypt we have more sensible experiments of Gods goodness and power so in the first plantation and further growth of our faith there will be very much all along to teach us this lesson that iâ— is a very hard thing to believe either in God for matters of providence or in Christ for pardon of sin yea and many times after the shaken heart is come to a center the earth-quake may return again especially if we take hold of rotten refuges for it s we that make it hard to believe otherwise they that have a faith dogmatical some righteousness and works of their own to trust to it is to them in their thinking a very easie thing to believe in Christ but its guilt that abates confidence if we our selves did but know our secret guilt it must needs make it hard to us to believe in Christ and yet all that do believe have this guilt staring them in the face but the Goodness truth and freeness of the promise overcomes it Use 2 Secondly If God have drawn thee to Christ and made thee a believer then return and acknowledge to him the Glory Let it ravish thy heart with the love of God for his finger hath been in thy heart whether thou be sensible of it no and to whet and sharpen thy praise let the open sight of thy former unfitness to believe equal to the unfitness of other men and thy equal impotency and opposition to thy own happiness raise the tune of thy praise for a Christian must never lose the sence of his former sins I was a persecuter and injurious and then it follows in 1 Tim. 1. 13. and the grace of the Lord was exceeding abundant to me with faith and love and therefore thou hast reason to kiss that hand
that you believe not few men that believe the one will believe the other they will not believe but that they can believe as if it were an easier matter to believe in Christ then to keep the law that is as if it were easier to obey the Gospel then t is to obey the law and that therefore such an omnipotent power as this divine drawing imports is not necessary to make a sinner believe Now I beseech you consider the Law hath something in you for being once written in the heart of man there do remain some fragments or rubbish if I may use that word in allusion to a building form but of the Gospel there is not a line in the heart of man by nature because it is wholly revealed and therefore it is as impossible by a saving faith to believe in Christ unto salvation as it is for a man to keep the law it 's as easy for a man to love God above self which the law requires as to believe in Christ Jesus with self denial for in both self goeth down to love with all the heart which the law requires is as impossible as to believe with all the heart as the Gospel requires and commands and therefore men are mistaken that think faith is in their power and confesse that obedience to the command is not Obj. But you will say the law requires perfection the Gospel only sincerity therefore the Gospel is easier of the two Answ It s true integrity is required in the law of God for you must not misse a hair if you will be saved that way Cursed is he that continues not in all things that are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3. 9. But now the Gospel requires only a sincere heart It 's true God in the Gospel is content and pleased with sincerity and mark what the Apostle saith concerning the law It 's a burden intollerable which neither they nor their fathers wâ—re able to bear Act. 15. 10. But Christ saith that his yoke is easy and his burden is light Matth. 11. 30. Here is the difference but to rise out of this estate into which we are plunged now for we must speak of a recovery and rising again this is as hard and difficult as it is for us to keep the law all is one Suppose a man dead lying in the grave bound in the grave-clothes as Lazarus was and a man dead not bound at all but perfectly loose from such impediments is it not all on to put life into either of these two so though there be not a full integrity of the duties required of necessity in the Gospel yeâ— man being dead and to rise recover and come again to a state of salvation and Gods Image it 's all one power that is put forth to raise a man by faith in Christ which is recovering Gospel grace as to set a man in the state of perfection which is the life of Gods Image but indeed this is made possible as I said through grace to believe but to keep the law perfectly is not made possible to us in this life no not by grace God left it under an impossibility called the impossibility of the law Rom. 8. and therefore as the Apostle speaks of that faith that is wrought in those that shall be saved it is wrought by an exceeding hyperbole of power 1 Epes 18. 19. â—he uses such a weight of words the exceeding greatness of his mighty power in them that do believe according to the power that was exercised in Christ when God raised him from the dead now Christ was perfectly dead and lay under the weight of the sinnes of all believers and therefore the power that raised him up was omnipotent and is not this power exemplified in raising you to faith which is a recovering grace except men be pleased to deny that man is not so dead as Christ was that he hath some degree of spiritual life though Christ had no degree of natural life for then he had not been dead as neither we if it be so and I know not why they should deny the same omnipotent power to raise them from being dead in sinnes to come to Christ for to deny the greatness of the power is to deny the degree of the death and therefore I think it to be a good reason for the conclusion of this digression from the privation oâ— defect that is in man to believe and the power that is necessary to relieve that defect and heal that privation to argue the impossibility of faith to a natural man And For that which is said if others of lower form lesse in parts do believe why not Iâ—â— why should not I think my self a believer as well as he or another I reply that in Scripture especially our Saviours doctrine the reason of believing and not believing seems to lie very high and out of sight as they say of the head of Nilus mark and take no offence but let your Reason stoop to God and his Word you believe not because you are not of my sheep John 10. 26. as many as were ordained to eternal life believed as if ordination to eternal life were the original or cause of believing Acts 13. 48. But we shall look only into man himself in whom there is reason enough for his unbelief how can you believe that receive honour one of another John 5. 40. there are so many reasons for unbelief as there are master sins for every master sin as it brings the soul under great guilt so it hinders the soul from coming to Christ Jesus but then what reason in man can there be given for his faith in Christ We see many simple men the Scripture calls them babes believe learned men do not We have read of a thousand converted at the first Sermon they heard as at Peters Sermon And again many hear a thousand Sermons and yet are not believers In short though nature and art in their works require the subject they work upon to be disposed and fitted with capacity else the work is hindred therefore the sun hardens and softens according to the temper of the subject on which it works but God that works this faith if he do not find a subject prepared as indeed he doth not he can make or create faith in most indisposed subjects for Creation requires not so much as matter to work on but works out of nothing as we know which nature cannot do When God works faith in yâ—â— he finds no propension to faith but opposition he finds nothing lesse then nothing in man but he works it I say there is no cause can be given in man why one believes and not another because it is the hand of free and powerful grace that works it in man without finding any propension unto it Reason The reason why these Gospel-graces do require a supernatural strength is this in general Christs dominion in man is begun and carried on first
of man This is that which is lumen fidel and shews him as he is so as to draw unto him and is called the teaching of God whereby every man that hath it doth believe and receive Christ Joh. 6. 47. Who is seen in his own light as the Sun in its own for by torch-light or candles we cannot see the Sun so the natural man cannot know him because he is spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14. And so it s said Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee but my Father Mat. 16. 17. The truth of the History of the Gospel that you read may be revealed to flesh and blood but the revelation of which faith is begotten is from my Father And in 1 John 5. 20. He hath given to us an understanding that we may know him and we are in him Such a knowledge to know him by faith is a knowledge of union and brings us to him Therefore this light of the sweetness excellency comfortableness and necessity of Christ Jesus appearing to your minds and hearts by Gods teaching is that which throws down your reasonings pulls down your strong holds and brings every thought in you into captivity to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10. 5. And doubtless that is the light which is necessary to the production of true faith in Christ which yet few have Therefore let not men wonder that have a great deal of natural knowledge that yet they have not a proportionable light that is commensurable to spiritual things no more then the Moon-light is to judge of colours you have not the light that produces faith and because you have it not in a natural estate therefore the natural man is not able to believe Fourthly the act of mans coming is an effect of Gods drawing for man doth not come that he may be drawn but because he is drawn first Faith is an act of a vital principle faith is not the act of a dead man there must be life before there be sight we do not first see and then live no but all seeing in nature is an act of life and from life it must come A dead man seeth not and therefore it is no more easie for a man to believe in Christ then to make himself to live for your reason will teach you there must be potentia before there be actus he that will believe in Christ if he will not have an act without power must first make himself alive raise himself from being dead in trespasses and sins that he may put forth lively acts from a vital principle therefore I conclude from that demonstration that no man is able of himself to believe in Christ Fifthly no man can believe aright that undervalues God or Christ to his own lusts or any of them If any man undervalues God or Christ to any worldly earthly interest true in judgement you may not but in practice you do and every natural man hath some lust that he values somewhat of the flesh or the world that is predominant and prevalent in him which he values even above God that man sets up himself before God in his choise or election and so cannot believe in Christ Christ said in John 5. 40. How can ye believe that receive honour one of another that have a humour of doing honour and receiving honour from men and do not content your selves with the honour that comes from God only As the least chap in the joynt between the graft and the stock will hinder coalition so that man that hath either one lust or other for the same reason holds of all if he be ambitious of honour that he prefers and holds fast rather then leave and come to Christ From all that hath been said the hardness and difficulty of faith must be considered what it is and then reason will convince you that no man can come to or believe in Christ except the Father draw him The Use of this point is five-fold First to humble the pride of man that is so much unale as to contribute one act of saving faith to his salvation able to do little in a thing on which depends his eternal happiness 〈◊〉 believing in Christ A dead hand or a full hand neither of them can receive or hold fast any thing Now every man in the world hath a dead hand or a full dead without life or full of himself his own righteousness and obedience and therefore it humbles the pride of man that so confidently can believe and receive Christ they can do nothing if they cannot do that Truly you can do nothing indeed there must be a moulding a drawing a teaching of God whereby there must be a new life put into you and your hand must be emptyed Secondly it shews the folly of those that undertake to believe and repent at their own pleasure and their own time That are like Israel All that the Lord commands us we will do or as a Mariner that is to go to sea truants his time away as if he had the wind in a bag or in his fist Sin is a deceitful thing and men are hardened through the deceitfulness of it Heb. 3. 13. Take heed you that are so great undertakers I will assure you you shall be little or small performers of this point For Thirdly it is not an easie thing to believe as is pretended as I have shewn They seem to me to have but little faith or little proof of it that say so or have not found it a hard thing to believe In time of peace when nothing troubles the conscience no temptation no sin no discouragement its easie to pretend believing But is it easie when temptation comes when a man sees the vast compass of his sins and sees the frowning face of God no ability nor power to help himself is it easie then I believe you will find it a hard thing and our Saviours words will be found true No man can Fourth Use of this Point Be not deluded with a conceit of a common interest in Christ or hope thereof because of his general salvation because he hath redeemed you and common and general men are deluded by it I will tell you I have known many that have made this to be their comfort this may be an encouragement to men to believe but can be no comfort to men until they do believe This is an encouragement inviting men to believe but that 's not sure or strong consolation You must indeed come to him but the power whereby you come will be found not to be at your command But God vouchsafes it unto those he will draw and those only Lastly learn hence that God hath laid the condition of salvation upon that which he himself works God hath laid it upon our coming to Christ which doth require the very grace of God to perform our coming to Gods drawing that so in every mans salvation the power and freedome of the grace of God may be acknowledged
of their misery drove them to shelter and refuge as the hunted beast flies to his den and covert where he hides himself for he is not alwayes caught when hunted So the heart of man when thâ— Law goes out against him and thunders the wrath of God in his face and he is convinc'd of this and sees it is driven to its refuge But this is requisite to full conviction that a man be as they say diggâ— out of his borough unkenneld and all his refuges dismanâ—led and pulld down about his ears humbled out of his refuges as well as out of the guilt of sin And this is taught you in the parable of the lost Son Luk. 15. 12 13. When all was spent and the famine came he began to be in want yet he went and joyned himself to a Citizen of that far Country to relieve himself by feeding swine c. The meaning is when a man begins to be pincht with the sense of his lost condition and is in want of a shelter he doth make shifts he flies to some refuges of his own to support his conscience and relieve his famine And mark it he takes hold of a Citizen that keeps him in a far Country if he would maintain him he would live there still If by your refuges you can gain to relieve your selves you will keep off from God still But when he was beaten from his refuges as well as whipt by famine then saith the Text he came to himself and began to think of plenty in his Fathers house shewing that until poor sinners be not only humbled under the smart of sin but driven from all shelters and refuges he will not think of the riches of that God and Father whom he hath offended but willingly use all means to stay in that far Country but when he is beaten from all then he is resolved for God You have the like saying to this in Hos 2. 6. Therefore I will hedge up thy way with thorns and make a wall that she shall not find her paths Ver. 7. And she shall follow her Lovers but shall not overtake them shall seek them but shall not find them Then shall she say I will go and return to my first husband for then it was better with me then now A true Embleme of a man cast out of all content and possible relief he finds no contentment in sin but a pricking and sharpness He shall follow his Lovers but the plaister will not be wide enough for the wound he shall not finde them shall not overtake contentment he seeks his Lovers but is not relieved by them Then the Conviction becomes full and he resolves to take up with God as best And then Secondly this Conviction is of the fulness and excellency the sufficiency and fitness of Christ Jesus That he is able to save to the-utmost all that come to God by him Heb. 7. 25. And upon these two hinges hangs this full and thorough Conviction Of which I have to say four things that I may not leave that Argument till I have brought it to a Conclusion First that this Conviction must go before the resolution and acceptance of the will because it leads unto this willingness and resolution as it s said John 6. 40. This is the will of him that sent me that whosoever sees the Son and believes on him should have eternal life The first thing is seeing of Christ that is convictively and this believing follows after and is somewhat more then seeing They that oppose themselves must be instructed that by repentance given they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil 2 Tim. 2. 25 26. That they may recover and awaken themselves on t of their sleep Till they have this instruction they are captives and oppose themselves Tertullian in his time speaks of some Erronists that did in his time as now in ours suadendo docere teach by perswasions and wooing their credulous Proselytes whereas they should docendo suadere first teach by Conviction and then perswade men not childishly to perswade before you have convinc'd for when you have convinc'd the perswasion is half made That 's the method of dealing with men as men Secondly the will of man naturally follows the conviction of the understanding and of the mind The understanding is like the seeing man that rides upon the shoulders of the blind but going man the will moves but it sees not the understanding doth not move the man fully and wholly but sees the way for the will of man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a rational appetite led by reason The ancient Divines and Philosophers had a saying Every evil man errs And by that saying they prove that the conviction of the understanding must lead the will or as Solomons phrase is is a fool For if he did not err in judgement if he had so much light to guide him and lead him he could not be wicked in his choise or miselect But there is an errour in all sin an errour in the mind whereby not being fully convinc'd of truth it leaves the will to mischuse under the specious choise of good to chuse that which is evil I know in these latter dayes some of the Schools have chopt the understanding and the will not into divers acts upon several respective objects Truth and Goodness but into divers faculties that I believe they will never be able to prove and for my part I will not dispute only this I tell you whenever God commands light to shine out of darkness and shines into your hearts the knowledge of himself by the faith of Christ Jesus this is by conviction 2 Cor. 4. 6. as in the Creation a light begotten shined out of darkness And by this light he cures the darkness of the mind and the enmity of the will by which means when a man is fully and duly convinc'd he comes and receives Christ Jesus the Lord. Thirdly till the light of Conviction do premonstrate Christ in his glorious beauty goodness truth and sufficiency to the soul or in all those glories that render him eligible whereby he may draw your hearts unto him there is no willingness in mans heart to accept or receive him For the reason is by the natural light of mans own reason and understanding though there be never so much sagacity in them Christ and the things of God have no more shew to the eye of man then the most orient colours have by moon or torch-light which lies under prejudices and vility and misapprehensions and so much as they lose of their beauty so much they come short of their convictiveness because as the medium is the cause why a strait staff in the water appears to my eye crooked and otherwise then it is it is not crooked but because I look through that medium the staff seems to be so and is so to me Just so to the eye of a natural man looking not through the medium of this
that is the grace that is promiscuously offered unto man in the Ministry of the Gospel or other external means though it be carried oâ— by great enlightnings moral suasions sweet invitations loud pulsations or knocking 's at the door of security and though by these means there be wrought some common graces that are common in elect and reprobate like the joy in the stony ground I say though these be yet both these offers of grace which being received would make a man happy are resisted and opposed and these shallow graces are but like some winter fruit that never ripen and come to maturity as the blade in the thorny and stony ground never came to ear well and so to harvest so these graces may be finally choaked and from them a man may finally fall away this is the point of resistance of this grace offered which before I give the reasons of I shall premise three things to be handled First Concerning these offers of grace I shall say three things Secondly Shew the entertainment of these offers is with opposition and recusancy Thirdly The dangerous case that man falls into by this refusal As concerning the offers of grace that God makes you in the Gospel know three things First That the Gospel tenour or terms may be propounded to every creature that 's the phrase of Christ Mark 16. 15. Go preach the Gospel to every creature that is in the dialect of Christ which was the received form of speech used at that time by the Jewish Rabbies every man every humane creature for it belongs not to the Angels that sinned though they be sinful creatures these Gospel proposals do not belong to them but every humane creature which is expounded by Matthew Go and Baptize that is Disciple all Nations Mat. 28. and what 's the meaning properly of all Nations and every creature this that whereas the Jewish Pale was but of one Nation they were the Church of God impaled and there was a wall of partition between them and all the world beside and he dealt not so with every Nation as he did with them It seems now the Pale is broken down the wall of partition and the several is made common now go preach to every creature that is the Jews only are not the subjects of Gospel promises but all and every man to them it may be proposed and what are those Gospel terms he that believes and is baptized shall be saved he that believes not shall be damned but is this Gospel he that believes not shall be damned To this I answer you must consider the meaning of it under the Law there was a curse went out against every man for every sin there could not be an idle word or thought but the curse of the Law went out against In Gal. 3. 10. Cursed is every one c. Now mark though this curse may go forth against every sin by the sentence of the Law yet it is dissolved and taken off from believers and abides only because of unbelief Joh. 3. ult Believing takes off every score and that only About these offers of the Gospel consider two things they are made with Invitation and with Encouragement First with Invitation of such as could not expect to be at the marriage feast of a Kings Son Go out saith the King to the high-wayes and hedges and invite the meanest and most remote creatures Mat. 22. 4. and they called in both good and bad and furnished the feast with guests all sorts may have these Gospel proposals made to them And Secondly It s made with Encouragement and that to the most crimson and scarlet sinners Isa 1. 16 17 18 Wash you make you clean c. None that came to Christ for cure were dismist without healing though they were Samaritans and not Israelites therefore no man can say that God by the tenour of the Gospel hath excluded him or shut the door against him for in Isa 56. 5 6. the Prophet Isaiah gives in words of Encouragement Let not the son of the stranger say I am cast out nor the Eunuch I am a dry tree for both the son of the stranger the Proselyte and the Eunuch had a mark of disgrace upon them for if they fear the Lord they shall enjoy the priviledges of children and favourites his meaning is there is no man so alien so remote from God and his favour that hath all the marks of disparagement upon him but if he will come in and believe the invitation is made to him I confess we read in the Scripture that the Spirit of God forbade the lantern-bearers of the Gospel to go into some Countries and the providence of God at all times and at this time so regulates the sun of the Gospel as that some people are as in night but this I say that no man is excluded by the Gospel tenour from the offer of grace that is propounded in the Gospel by any national bar as in former time And then Secondly As the Gospel offer and the proposals thereof may be made to every man without any other consideration then that he is a sinner Art thou a sinner for thee Christ is a Saviour that as the brazen Serpent was set upon the pole for the wounded and bitten with fiery Serpents So is grace offered in the Gospel to them that are finners without any other consideration for the offer of it understand me right but for the promise of the Gospel that 's made to every one that comes to Christ for the grace promised and here is no condition of worthiness but of fitness and meetness whereby a man may be in a nearer capacity but hath no more merit or worth as I shall here shew you The Gospel makes the Proclamation of pardon to all men that are in actual rebellion that as a Prince by his pardon charms the sword out of the hands of a Rebel so if your iron hearts were softned to understand the grace of God upon his Proclamation you might have the sword of rebellion charmed out of your hands and be brought into submission unto Christ but the Gospel makes the promise of pardon and grace to a believer in Christ and to every believer without any respect to what he hath been in times past whether he be Barbarian or Scythian bond or free for the righteousness of God is upon all and unto all that believe for there is no difference Rom. 3. 22. Mark and be invited I beseech you that have so long stood it out and resisted the grace of God Oh! be you invited to come in the promise is to every one that thirsteth Isa 55. 1. All that are weary and heavy-laden with the barthen of their sins and miseries Mat. 11. 28. And whosoever will viz. is willing let him come and take of the water of life freely Rev. 22. 17. Every one that believeth in Christ shall not perish but have eternal life John 3. 15 16. So that you see the
affection and yet the proud and self-righteous people were gainsaying and contradicting thi◠was their resistance as long as Gods patience and do not you find this in your own hearts how often have you gainsaid and contradicted the God of heaven Fifthly The counsels invitations and reproofs of Wisdom i.e. of Christ are not regarded in Prov. 1. 24. a terrible place I have called and ye refused stretched out my hands and no man regarded ye have despised all my counsel and set at nought all my reproof or hated my reproof and the◠he proceeds to tell them how bitterly he will go out against them here is calling stretching out of hands counsel reproof and they all refused not regarded despised hated I think this amounts to the point of resistance Sixthly The Holy Ghost is resisted in Acts 7. 51. ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised ye do alwayes resist the Holy Ghost but how doth this stand with the former point that the Spirit of God in the point of Conversion cannot be resisted I answer The clear meaning of this phrase is the Holy Ghost speaking in the Prophets you have resisted the Holy Ghost speaking and testifying to you in the Prophets as if he had said the Holy Ghost speaking in the ministry and calling by the Word of the Gospel that 's it you have resisted for it s not meant of the renewing Spirit in the heart but of the Spirit testifying in the Prophets ye uncircumcised and stiff-necked like a Bullock of a hard neck that will take no yoke and uncircumcised that is hard and obstinate against God you do alway resist the Holy Ghost this was their resistance from whence you learn that there is a natural hardness of heart an obstinate neck that is the cause of mans resistance of the Holy Ghost both speaking in the Word and knocking at the door and exciting with motions the heart to believe all is in vain for it is but as knocking at a dead mans door or at a guilty persons door that will put more bars when one knocks so when God knocks and layes siege to mans heart there is made the greater opposition Seventhly Men that refuse to submit to the way of Salvation by God appointed are said to reject the counsel of God against themselves 〈◊〉 7. 30. speaking of some that came not in to the Baptism of John some read it Towards themselves the counsel of God towards them for their good or the counsel of God against themselves that is to their own hurt and prejudice in that they would not be baptized by Johns Ministry to the profession of the Lord Jesus people that will not come in to the Ordinances of God they reject the counsel of God against themselves to their own hurt this is through resistance Lastly Take a full measure of the height or this opposition there can be no higher expressions then those in Heb. 10. 29. to tread under foot the Son of God to account the blood of the Covenant an unholy or common thing and do despight to the Spirit of grace but who doth this are there such monsters in the world such miscreants as do this yes saith he that there is and who are they such as have been sanctified that is called into Christianity that 's the plain meaning and the word in the text reaches no farther separate from heathenish Idolatry and pollution to come to and profess the name of Christ and so have been sanctified and I take those in Heb. 6. 4. 5. to be the same men with these there it s said they were enlightned and tasted they were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and yet they fell here you find men sanctified to tread under foot the Son of God there is a double apostacy a simple apostacy called a stealing or a shrinking away from the profession of Religion And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a venome apostacy falling away with despight against Religion or Christ that in Heb. 6. speaks of the former this in Heb. 10. of the latter and what doth God construe their action to be a treading of the Son of God under foot and offering despight to the Spirit In all these particulars I have held my self to the New Testament and the words of Christ in it and now as I said that we have particularly pondred the words of Scripture in this point let us sum them up together here is hating opposing ones self slighting refusing resisting the holy Spirit rejecting the counsel of God and treding under foot the Son of God which fully amount to a resistance of the offers of grace Serm. 13 I Know it is a hard thing to convince any man of this therefore I have used Scripture words Gods language that we may not flatter our selves and that men may see there is more poyson in their hearts then they are aware of or will own I know what it is that usually blinds men that they will not own these expressions of Scripture to belong to them for who will call himself an opposer of grace offered a resister of the Holy Ghost and that is because you confess your selves to be glad of the tydings of the Gospel of remission of sin and deliverance from hell and you delight to hear of Salvation as it is generally conceived to be a state of happiness not as it is a state of holiness and communion with God and in any extremity agony and death into which you fall you pretend to have some desires of grace as a bridge unto Salvation or at least seem to magnifie it much in words these things seem to be an argument to you that you are not resisters and neglecters of this saving grace but you may well remember that the foolish Virgins knocked at the door and cryed Lord Lord open unto us and the stony ground heard and believed the Word of the Gospel with a kind of joy And there is not the veryest coward in the world but will take hold of a swords point to save his life and to pluck him out of the water the Gospel as it is interpreted and looked upon by the eye of self-love seems very attractive of the desire of man towards it so long as he may serve himself and his own advantage upon it namely to live in sin and to his sin and yet be saved at last when he can sin no more so long there is no carnal heart will resist and make opposition but all this may stand with hate of Christ and Grace for till a mans heart be thus moulded and tempered by God as to affect Grace for reconciliation and for conversion that so you may be Gods as well as have him yours so as to live to him as well as have Christ dye for you till then there is little but fallacy and falshood in you the man that thrust in at the marriage feast who came to fill his belly with good chear not for the honour of the bridegroom was cast out speechless
faith and repentance but God requires not the performance of the conditions by mans own power for therefore the Covenant is altered from Do this and live unto Believe in the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved they are both exprest Rom. 10. 5 9. because man fallen man could not abide such a condition of life as must rest upon his own power to performance which was before possible to him while he stood in integrity but now is impossible to him in sin this objection may be further pursued and then I confess you make a hard knot of it Obj. Still it seems the condition continues impossible for man by a natural power cannot perform personal and perfect obedience neither can he believe neither keep the law nor obey the Gospel neither perform the condition of works nor yet of Faith and what are we then the better Answ You must distinguish between a natural power and a power restored by grace as to the natural power there is no more in man to believe in Christ then to perform the law to a natural power both these conditions are impossible let me not offend you in words for to Do this and live you do not pretend to but to Believe and come to Christ that you say you can But the text saith no man can come to me Oh that you could but feel this impotency in your selves but then the power restored is a power to believe in Christ which is not restored to keep the law of works but unfeignedly to believe in and love Christ and this power is given by the drawing of God to all that do indeed come to Christ those that are not drawn do not come all that come are drawn and impowred to believe Gods drawing and mans coming are both of one latitude one measure one extent as many as the Lord works upon and draws they do come ver 45. And those that are not drawn do not come ver 44. and this I call the restored power not restored to man to keep the Law but to believe in and receive Christ Jesus And so the power to perform the condition of the Covenant is a restored power but to perform the condition of the Covenant of works there is no power restored therefore Austin saith God will not that it should pertain but only to his Grace that man should come to him that being come he should not recede from him And that God would not have the condition of this Covenant to be built on mans power of performance I prove by three Reasons Reas 1 First God is pleased that his promise or Covenant should be sure to all the seed Rom. 4. 16. Therefore it is of faith that it may be by grace to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed not to all the world but to all the seed and how unsure it had been if it had stood and bottomed on man the experience of the first man Adam doth teach who though in his integrity made shipwrack of all by defection from it much more may be said of man under sin were he not supported by the power of a better prop the Mediatour God will have it sure to all the seed And therefore will not establish it on the works of man because he betrayed it and brought shipwrack on it at first and there shall come a shipwrack on it no more Reas 2 Secondly God doth not expect that the conditions should be performed by man only calls for it as a duty that I owe but not as standing in my power But God makes promises of the very conditions which he requires not of the benefits of the Covenant only but of the graces of it that they may keep it Mark the promises of the Covenant I will put my Law into their hearts and write it in their minds and they shall all know me Heb. 8. 10 11. I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall not depart from me Jer. 32. 40. I will will put my spirit within them and cause them to walk in my statutes Ezek. 36. 27. I will take away a heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh Ezek. 11. 19. And who will say that these promises are built on any conditions in man Reas 3 Thirdly Because of this Covenant Christ is surety which in the first Covenant was not If we deal with a poor or suspected man we lie hard at him for a surety happily we will take a rich mans word Though there was no surety of the first Covenant for Adam had none yet now there is a surety given that must stand at stake and therefor it is said God hath made him a Mediator of a better Covenant Heb. 7. 22. and this surety-ship of Christ shews that man is not to be trusted but upon surety And what undertaking Christ performs may be seen in his account he makes of his sheep John 17. 8. I have manifested thy word unto them and they have received it and have known that I came out from thee And believed that thou hast sent me this is an excellent undertaker and a good Accountant for his sheep not one of them is lost they have received thy word they have believed A rare comfort for all that are Christs they are undertaken for Christ is accountable for them to God 7. Lastly Since the glory of God is thus kept intire that all things are of him through him to him Rom. 11. ult and that rectum est index sui obliqui the right line is index of it self and the oblique or Crooked Let whatsoever doctrine that makes not all to be of him through him and unto him be hence confuted by this excellent test as First That which makes man a beginner of Conversion and God a helper of those beginnings that affirms assisting but not preventing Grace that which makes grace the nurse not the mother that brings forth a crutch for the lame but not life to quicken the dead that which makes God the finisher but not the author of Faith this is not Scripture doctrine this makes not all to be of him Secondly That which affirms that though there be no merit in Justification yet there is a power in man for Sanctification because it deals unequally with a long arm and a short one allows no merit and yet assumes a power that sounds not well neither yet this is a thought that is in many a mans heart Oh that God would pardon me and for walking with God let me alone Oh that God would forgive me my sins and I le cleanse my self I le live to God you will not assume the merit of Justification but you may not set your power in the place of the spirit of God in point of sanctification no more then merit in place of the Lord Jesus for Justification for in Psal 103. he forgives all thy sin and heals all thy disease ver 3. where in one verse you may see both
Law imposed upon our Mediator that is the Covenant made with Christ And Arminius in his Orations De Sacerdotio Christi confesses this Covenant made with Christ is very well exprest in these words Isa 53. 10. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin therefore his soul was to be an offering And the promise of the Covenant with Christ that he should see his seed this Covenant of God with the Mediator what he should perform as Mediator is pursued and brought to effect by God his sending of his Son But the Covenant made with sinners in a Mediator it is this If you believe in and come to this Lord Jesus whom he hath sent you shall be saved And this part of the Covenant is brought to effect and pursued by Gods drawing us to come to Christ The want of making distinction between the Covenant with the Mediator what he shall do he shall make his soul an offering for sin And what he shall have he shall see his seed he shall divide the spoil take the captive out of the hands of the Devil and between the Covenant with the sinner where there are the same two respects what he shall do he shall come unto and believe in the Lord Jesus and what he shall have he shall be justified saved and recovered cut of the hands of hell and damnation How shall man be able to do this saith God I will draw him for else he cannot come for No man can come to me except my Father draw him I say the not distinguishing of these two breeds great confusion in the apprehensions of men about the Covenant Thirdly Gods sending Christ puts a difference between mankind and the Angels that sinned But Gods drawing of man unto Christ puts a difference between the elect and others The speculation of which point is of delightful and pleasant consideration By sending Christ he puts a difference between mankind faln and lapsed and the Angels that fell there was no cord let down from heaven to them to draw them out of the pit into which they were faln By drawing unto Christ he puts a difference between those that God will save and those that he will not save As many as were ordained to eternal life believed Acts 13. 48. To the Angels that sinned Christ is not sent there you see the love of God to mankind And they that are not ordained to eternal life are not drawn that makes a distinction of men Fourthly God in sending Christ doth not look at mans faith as antecedent or required of man before God sends him But Gods drawing man to Christ works that faith whereby man is saved Gods sending Christ doth not look to faith at all because Christ is sent to man yet resting in his unbelief but that faith that is required to salvation is wrought by Gods drawing whereby he moulds the heart of man to Christ as by a familiar comparison may be instanced The eye looking up was not required to the setting up of the Serpent upon the pole by Gods command it was set up whether any man was stung or no but looking up was required to the recovery of the person stung Fifthly If God should have sent Christ and required it of mans power or left it to mans power to come in and to receive him there would not have been a man as I conceive saved And his sending which is Gods act would have faln short of its effect without Gods drawing because there would not have been faith found to have received and believed in him for No man can c. and so Christs Kingdom had not been set up and built there had no members been planted into this head But the gift of Christ to and for men being seconded by a power of bringing men in to Christ gives effect and success and therefore you shall find in the Gospel alwayes Gods giving of Christ to man is seconded by the giving of the Spirit that as we are redeemed reconciled and justified by Christs merit and blood so we must also be enlightened regenerate and sanctified by Gods Spirit the one of these accompanies the other And this power of the Spirit doth so certainly go along with Christs merit as to the salvation of any man that it is said Have one have both For he that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his Rom. 8. 9. Because though Christ be sent by the mission of God yet without this Spirit there is no drawing no traction of man to be partaker of Christ as we have some adumbration or shadow In Israel they are delivered from the destroying Angel by blood sprinkled on the door posts And from the Egyptian slavery by a mighty hand shewing these two works in the delivery of man out of the slavery under which he lay there is the work of Redemption by the blood of Christ sprinkled upon him and he must march out be drawn out of sin by an out-stretched arm and mighty hand these two must go together Sixthly There is a general encouragement you may call it Comfort that arises to us from Gods sending of Christ For where there is no hope there is no motion where there is no encouragement to believe there a man hath little heart From Gods sending Christ to save you there is encouragement but the present Comfort the special Consolation of a mans salvation arises from the second particular of the two that God hath drawn man to Christ Jesus there is I say an encouragement that God hath sent Christ that is there is a salvability men are made saveable from the curse and condemnation of the Law under which they are involved But the special comfort that they have to themselves in particular must arise from this that God hath drawn and by converting grace made them to believe in Christ For this faith this drawing of man to Christ is both a pledge of salvation for the future and a token of his election before-hand And that which as it were doth couple both the poles together the election of God and the salvation of man the one as a pledge because future the other as a mark or sign because past this is a comfortable point indeed But certainly the point of sending Christ to make atonement for all or of universal Redemption let it be supposed doth neither speak salvation nor election to any one in particular more then another and therefore such silly souls whether they be drawn by others or through their own ignorance of the point are mistaken and deceived that do build the comfort of their salvation upon that that God hath sent Christ for an encouragement to believe therefore they shall be saved they do but build Castles in the air that is without ground for the Scripture tells you that you must be in the faith and Christ must be in you except you be reprobates 2 Cor. 13. 5. It is this drawing you to come to Christ that strikes
the spice but draws forth that which is by beating and pounding it All excitations if they fall on a good and godly heart then indeed they breathe forth grace but if on a cranal and a corrupt will then these excitations are denied and gainsayed and contradicted that which plants the vital principle in the will that is it that doth it but whether the understanding that respects verum the truth of a thing or the will respecting Bonum the good ness of a thing for the will chuses that which is good be one faculty diversly related or no it doth not much matter to this purpose But this is the thing that I am upon that the will must be healed for it was corrupted and though some say the will of man did lose nothing by the fall nor gain nothing by Christ there was no sin nor grace seated in it but a meer indifferency and liberty that 's contrary to reason for the will of man being a principal faculty it is a lease of the new man as it was of the old and therefore must be not only put into motion by the understanding but restored to life by grace infused only this I say that as the seeing man goes foremost and leads the way to the blind man so the understanding goes before according to natural order and by and through it is the will changed and renewed as also the affections are It 's a point of great controversie though perhaps it is little seen to what it tends Rom. 12. 2. Be ye tranformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or approve what is the good acceptable and well-pleasing will of God bâ—ye renewed in your mind that you may prove that is that you may accept the will of God that you may be pleased and make choice to obey it where it is plain that the action of the will followes the renewing and translation of the mind there must be a seeing of Christ and then a coming to him for in Joh. 6 40. this is the will of God that he that seeth the Sonne and believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life mark the order he doth not mean an ocular sensible seeing but he that by the understanding sees the beautie and necessity of Christ and then believes in him there is an act of the will that followes knowledg And this is the light of God that he sets up in dark minds that when the Lord finds you a foolish and ignorant people not able to discern the great things of God he lights a candle in your minds he teaches you by the teachings of God by such a powerful teaching as draws the heart after it that it delights and makes choice of the Lord Jesus above all things this is the light by which the will is led and converted that hath in it such convincing clearness and so full and powerful a dictate it gives forth hath some what in it that I confess I am not able to explain being a light shined into the heart by God that it carries all with it and the will cannot stay behind this convincing light this fixed dictate of the mind this light and teaching of God No more then I may instance in another thing whereof I can give no reason neither Elisha could stay behind when Eliah had cast his mantle on him 1 Kings 19. these workings of God in the hearts of men convincing by light that they cannot gainsay nor resist these are things that the world know not and man cannot explain till he have experience no more then a man that hath eyes can explain green red and yellow to a blind man the Apostle speaks peremptorily in this point 2 Co. 13 8. we can do nothing against the truth but for it so powerful and great a work is this of God when he will draw the heart unto him yea when the conversation is never so bad and contrary as sometimes you have seen a great aversation in the woman to have such an husband who is afterward pursued with as violent a desire that cannot be denied without hazard of her life so is it in closing with Christ though a man have as great a defiance against him as Paul had and there be an aversion to him and his rule yet after the Lord hath dealt with such a mans heart Oh! the violent affections the ravishments that are wrought in the heart of this man to Christ even such as if there had never been such aversernes before There are two things that render this teaching a drawing-teaching First That the mind be convictively taught that to be acquainted with God and in covenant with him to have God for ones portion and great reward is the chiefest good imaginable either in this or the next world that nothing in all the world is comparable unto it this which no wisdom of man could ever find out God himself teaches and Gods people acknowledg it many will say who will shew us any good when shall we be so happy as that we shall have no sorrow with it Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us Psal 4 6. And in Psal 73. 25. whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none an earth that I desire in comparison of thee A spark leaping from the bodie of the fire dies presently but lives in its element a twig cut off from the tree will be dead before tomorrow morning but sticking to the tree it flourishes Such is man separated from the favour and fruition of God as all men in the state of nature are dead and miserable but adhering to coming acquainted with God is happie for this is the property of the summum bonum that without the having of other goods it makes man happie that is the chief good that eminently contains all other goods in it other things that are good are not the chief good Why because the whole confluence of them if altogether would not make a man happy as a heavy body as high as the moon will not rest but move to its center and there it is quiet so let God be a mans portion though he hath no share in the world he is happy and at rest Now let God reach this convictively and he teaches drawingly Let this be the dictate of the understanding unvariable unshaken that this is your chief good and it drawes all the soul after it and not a hoof is behind Secondly that the mind also be convictively taught and inlightned what is the only means to attain this chief good that is God for a portion and exceeding great reward there is but one means one ladder of Jacob one way in the world to attain it and that is the knowledg of Christ for out of Christ God is as I may say an absolute God with whom I can have nothing to doe a consuming fire from whom man a sinner through guilt as Adam did at first will fly away if he
upon their souls nor were ever brought by it to a Life of Faith to an hatred of their most secret sins to a predominant Love of God to a superlative esteem of spiritual things and to an Heavenly conversation and that must perish forever for want of that Grace yea for their contempt and hatred of it which they verbally magnified in their preaching and disputes If any subject in Divinity be practical and to be read with holy affection and resolution it is this Remember when thou readest of Grace that the Reader is one that is lost and miserable till Grace recover him and must be beholden to Grace to save him from everlasting wo. Remember that God hath therefore thus wonderfully revealed himself in Love that appearing most Lovely to us he may be most Loved by us and all the beams of his transcendent Goodness may terminate thus upon our hearts and heat them into ascendent flames of Love Read till thou thus Believest and thus Lovest and then thou hast read well And I hope thou wilt find much in these Sermons which may be bellows and fuel for this holy fire Though they are not those exact and elaborate works by which Mr. Vines should be known in his great abilities to the world but such Sermons as he ordinarily preached to his Flock yet if even here thou find not matter to encrease thy tears in the remembrance of those faithful Labourers that sin hath deprived England of thou differest from One of the afflicted servants of the Church Rich. Baxter These Books following are to be sold by Abel Roper at the Sun in Fleet-street ALl Mr. Vines Sermons published by himself collected into one Volume The Papers between his Majesty and the Divines at the Isle of Wight concerning Episcopal Government with Mr. Vines stating his Majesties Concessions Vindiciae Fâ—â—deris A Treatise of the Covenant of God entred into with mankind in the several kinds and degrees of it by Mr. Thomas Blake Minister of the Gospel The Covenant sealed or a Treatise of the Sacraments of both Covenants Polemical and Practical especially of the Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace by Mr. Thomas Blake his vindication of the Birth Priviledge or Covenant-Holiness of Believers and their issue in the time of the Gospel together with the Right of Infants to Baptism Mr. Anthony Burgess his Expository Comment Docâ—â—nal Controversal and Practical upon the whole first chapter of the second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians his Sermon at the Funeral of Mr. Blake Three Sermons of Dr. Tho. Jacombs Bucanus Common Places English A Discourse of the visible Church by Francis Fulwood Minister of the Gospel The Italian Convert or the life of Galeacius Caracciolus his admirable conversion from Popery and forsaking a rich Marquesdom for the Gospels sake St. Augustines Confessions translated into English by Dr. Watts Reynolds Celestial Amities or the souls sighing for the love of her Saviour his benefits of Afflictions his Advice against Libertinism his Eternity weighed with temporal and fading things of this world Iosephus History of the Iews fol. The works of Mr. William Perkins first Vol. fol. Dr. Fulk on the Rhemist Testament fol. The Temple of Solomon pourtrayed by light of Scripture by Samuel Lee fol. The Story of Stories in a Harmony of the four Evangelists octavo Gods Drawing AND Mans Coming to Christ JOHN 6. 44. No man cometh to me except my Father which hath sent me draw him Serm. 1 THis Text speaks plainly and fully enough to the point of mans Conversion for coming in to Christ upon his Call which is the phrase used in the Text. and Conversion unto God differ not but in sound of words which amount unto one and the same meaning The Philosopher in his Dialect would call this Conversion or this Coming unto Christ a motion not local from place to place but transitive from Term to Term for there are two Terms of every motion And the Evangelist according to Scripture expresses the terms of this motion diversly but denoting the same thing From darkness to light saith the Text Acts 26 18. And from the power of Satan unto God The Design that I have in my eye is to Treat of the point of Conversion not pretending to accurateness and curiositie anxiously inquiring after the method or manner of Gods working But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and practically to handle this point unto you For as thou knowest not what is the way of the Spirit or how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with Child so thou knowest not the works of God Eccles 11. 5. nor all the particulars of the methods and wayes wherein God works in the Conversion or Creation of this New man This Conversion sometimes denotes the potent and immediate work of God renewing and converting and this is called in my Text Gods drawing of a man to Christ in these words Except my Father draw him Sometimes it denotes the action of man converting himself to God by the Faith and Repentance which he doth receive from God and this my Text calls mans Coming unto Christ when he is called in that phrase No man can come to me except In time these two can hardly be distinguisht but in order of causality they are easie to be distinguished one from another I mean Gods work converting or drawing man and mans action converting and coming unto Christ The act of man in coming to Christ that 's not first but the work of God drawing in to Christ that is first and the act of mans coming must needs follow as the Sun must of necessitie first shine upon the wall before the wall can give or reflect light or heat from it self back again Facti sumus opus Dei We are first made the works or workmanship of God there is Gods drawing Then Facimus opera Dei we do the work of God or walk in the works of God which he hath ordained that we should walk in them Ephes 2. 10. There is our coming That you may clearly look into every corner of this Text you shall observe here two things First the doctrine that is here taught by our Saviour Secondly the reason of his teaching it at this time The Doctrine here laid forth consists in these three things First the magnifying of the work of God in mans Conversion to raise up your praises thanksgivings to God by whom you are what you are for to his Power and Grace our Saviour Christ assigns the only or the principal part of it and that 's exprest in the work of Gods drawing a man to Christ Therefore this Doctrine is not spoken in a simple form he doth not say in plain words My Father draws man unto me but it s spoken in an exceptive or exclusive form of words excluding mans power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 except my Father draws no man comes to me So that without the divine traction there is not an ability or power in man to come
it can be cleared This seems to me a great scandal whereat men stumble Secondly if God command and require good works in his holy Word of us and yet tells me that his election of me to salvation doth not stand upon them but that the election whereby God hath chosen me to salvation is firm by his calling Rom. 9. 11. then if so be these works required and commanded will not serve my turn will not confirm my Election or Justification I may follow them and yet not attain righteousness by them Rom. 9. 31. This is a great scandal and offence to mans reason Thirdly if God cast so many of the world off and chuse so few of them that are called but throws them out as the man that was thrown from the Feast not having the wedding garment This is a miserable offence Fourthly if God require faith of me and repentance call for a new heart and a new spirit and saith Make you a new heart and yet teaches me that none can come except a divine power draw him except it be given him then he requires impossible things And is not this say some like to Pharaoh that will have the full tale of brick but will not find the people straw These are the offences taken by mans reason these raise up the murmurings these make some men leave the care of their salvation at six and seven If I am elected I shall be saved if I am not elected I cannot This makes men throw the plow into the hedge-bottom and let the ship ride before the sea and wind Upon all this that I have said it appears that the doctrine of Christ and of the free grace of God in Christ requires an humble heart a captivated reason or else prejudices of pride and the reason of man will trouble the whole Scene And I may give an instance in a point so resented in the times wherein we live by our Masters of Reason as some call themselves as the Gnosticks of old those damnable Hereticks called themselves the knowing men who had their opposition of Science falsly so called 1 Tim. 6. 20. This is it That Christs blood is not a blood of Atonement or expiation of sin that there is no proper compensation nor any satisfaction made or needful to Divine Justice for sin How then God pardons us our sins by an absolute goodness by an absolute free pardon without such satisfaction As a man forgives a delinquent without any satisfaction or as a man forgives a debt another man owes him freely for nothing And this is the great Hinge on which the Socinian Doctrine hangs which hath leavened and pass'd through so many men in our times But this free pardon without satisfaction of Gods justice ruines and razes the foundations of our Christian Faith as if men would not have Christ to do too much for them were angry at him for his being their surety for his paying their debt and freeing them from prison and damnation which makes me cry out as the Apostle doth in 1 Cor. 1. 20. Where is the wise where is the Scribe where is the Disputer of this world Let them take notice of it the great learned men that preach Heathenism among us Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world how by the Doctrine of Christ and free grace And this I preach that we may listen and hold the truths that to others are offensive overlooking all the scandals that may be found in the person and doctrine of Christ Serm. 2 NOtwithstanding I am not unsensible that the free grace of God may be so preacht or if you will so apprehended by you as it may be not only offensive to carnal reason but justly offensive to Faith and Christianity it self And this is when the doctrine of free grace keeps not the Channel but runs out on this side or that side without or besides its bounds then indeed it is justly offensive and scandalous and that may be in three regards First when it is made universal in extent For the freedom of this grace hath no affinity with the universality And though many do conceive that they cannot preach it free except they do also preach it universal I shall after shew that there is no kindred between them In the election of any man to salvation it is free because it excludes mans worthiness or works and yet it s not universal so as all are elected and chosen One calling I mean that calling that is according to purpose it is free not standing upon works You are called by Gods grace and yet t is not universal so as all men are called according to Gods purpose It s free to such as are called though it be not common to all Was not the grace of God free to Jacob yet not common to him and Esau It was free to Peter and yet not common to him and Judas To you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven there is the freedom to others it is not given there is a denial of the universality Maith 13. 11. And therefore we must distinguish between the offer of free grace and the effects of it grace in the offer of it may be common and in a sort universal but in the effects you shall always observe grace to be of a differencing nature it discriminates and makesâ— difference between one and another in salvation and therein is the glory of it and reason will shew that so far as it differences one from another it is not universal for that which differences cannot be universal the election hath obtained and the rest were hardeued Rom. 11. Secondly It is indeed offensive when it opens or is made to open a window to looseness of opinion or profaneness of life That makes it rather to be called loose grace then free grace for free grace truly preacht neither takes off the bridle of restraint of sin nor the spur of excitation of holiness from Gods Law these two must stand together Sin is restained by the Law of God there 's the bridle and then its a spur and incentive to obedience Shall we sin saith the Apostle because we are not under the Law but under Grace God forbid Rom. 6. 15. Again Shall we sin that Grace may abound Rom. 6. 1. No we may not make the doctrine of Gods free grace a Pander or a Porter to let in or open us the gate more freely to sin against him And the reason is excellent good there is no greater and sweeter obligation obliging man to thankfulness and obedience then this Doctrine of free grace The sense of this free grace I say is the most obliging and indearing of the heart to God of any doctrine that can be preacht so contrary is it from being a loosener of those bands whereby we are tyed to God Thirdly it is not rightly preached when it is made to deny to man all agency in Conversion as well as all power whereby
the knowledge of Christ Use 2 Secondly admire and magnifie Christ Jesus If Christ had opened the eye unstopped the deaf ear cut the string of the dumb tongue thou wouldest have leaped and rejoyced as they did in the Gospel These were the miracles he wrought when he was on earth but now if thou be a convert and he hath enlightned thy eye unloosed thy tongue that thou canst now speak to God in prayer and thanksgiving this is the miracle he works from Heaven exceeding those on earth upon the body and the reason is because these were wrought on them that must die if the dead were raised they died again But this miracle is wrought on thee that art not to die again thy spiritual death but always live as Austin saith And consider with thy self that among all the miraculous works of Christ that are reckoned Matth. 11. 4 5. The blind see the deaf hear the sick are raised up and walk this cure is added that the poor receive the Gospel As who should say these are the wonders I usually work and among them this may pass for a wonder too It s a pretty ingenious observation take something from it that may greaten your hearts to the admiration and magnifying the goodness of God And so I have shewn the greatness of the work Serm. 4 THe second Point is to shew the impotency and imbecillity of natural man of his own strength savingly to believe or convert himself It is said which I would have observed in John 5. 40. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you will not come to me that you might have life And of the very same persons and almost with the same breath in the 44. verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how can you believe you will not you cannot What do you gather from these two expressions You may very well collect that this cannot is a moral impotency and a moral impotency as learned men do know differs very little from an unwillingness you cannot believe because you will not being disabled by such worldly and carnal lusts and prejudices as do forestall and take up your hearts and make it justly to be said you cannot The reason why I compare together these two verses you will not come to me and ye cannot believe is to shew what manner of impotency Christ points us to in this matter namely Not a meer and simple impotency that is without our default but a moral and culpable impotency whereby the heart is captivated by some lust or forelaid with prejudice against Christ so as we cannot because we will not come to him And of this impotency let me say this to you at the first it takes away all excuse all defence and the more impotent the worse who can excuse his blindness that hath purposely put out his eyes yea though it be resembled in Scripture to a simple impossibility yet it is moral and culpable Can the Aethiopian change his skin Jer. 13. 23. then may you that are accustomed to do evil learn to do well it is a moral impotency the fault whereof may be charged upon you such as for which you stand culpable before God This impotency of man to convert or come to Christ I speak unto in this branch and mans unwillingness in the next And so ye shall have both the cannot and the will not There is an impotency in man and a disability to come in to Christ and act to his own conversion These are the same things but in the handling of this point I may sometimes name the one and not the other without offence Man in his integrity for truly the estate of mans created integrity hath as I conceive a mighty influence into all Divinity man in that estate had a posse velle to obey God a power to love and to keep communion with God An absolute velle was not determined but he had a power and therefore men that are under the fall as all men are must needs acknowledge they have lost somewhat by it we have lost the power to will which he had nay some say that if there were a power of believing in Christ and of conversion in lapsed man he should seem to have a greater power then Adam As the power to rise again from the dead is greater then to act life when a man is alive I hold it to be but a trifling objection which is made upon design and this is the design upon which it is made for clearly to know the reason of any thing is to know the thing it self to oblige God by vertue of his Covenant with man fallen to give forth universal grace because this faith in Christ this repentance were not lost in Adam who could not lose that which he had not neither are we to pay for that we took not up in him Therefore God is engaged to give to man a power to believe because he hath made a new Covenant with me he is bound to enable me to be responsible to the Covenant that he hath made This Objection amounts to no more but this That Adam could not exercise faith in Christ nor the grace of repentance I grant it there was no need of it nor conversion very true for that supposes a deviation and a fall If man say he could not look to the Serpent on the pole I answer true because neither had the fiery Serpent stung nor was the Serpent set upon the pole to heal them that were stung before the institution of God had taken place Adam did not exercise obedience to the fifth commandement and yet you account it one of the moral commands for he had no Parents and Superiors to honour Very true but there was a root of integrity a root of faith in God and love of God there was the image of God from whence if occasion had been grace might have budded forth But to argue from the not-exercising to the not having of grace is no argument There was a seminal in Adam of which there is none left in man the root of holiness the principles of faith these are lost Nor are there any seminals left in man out of which faith can be educed as forms are educed out of the fitness of the matter The Scripture seems to speak punctually to the point No man can come to me John 6. 44. The natural or animal man by the light of his intellectual perception cannot know the things of God 1 Cor. 2. 14. The wisdom or sense of the flesh is not subject to the Law of God nor can be Rom. 8. 7. They that are in the flesh cannot please God Rom. 8. 8. We are not sufficient that is not impowered of our selves to think any thing as of our selves 2 Cor. 2 3. And this is enough to prove this point of mans impotency and disability Which shall be handled in two members First No man can by his natural power convert and turn to God Secondly No man can come to Christ or believe
all the difference to grace 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who made thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou hast not received Well then it cannot be and must not be said that man hath power of himself to believe or to determine of himself to convert and turn to God Obj. But that Text Who made thee to differ is meant of Christians differencing one from another in graces and gifts Answ I answer God that makes one Christian differ from another in graces and gifts sure he also makes a Christian differ from an Infidel from a man in unbelief and unregeneracy So I have shewn from three Heads the impossibility of mans making himself to differ from another Serm. 5 HAving thus far in general spoken of mans impotency to his own conversion And that being something general I now come to speak of that particular in the Text which our Saviour names and that is the Adunamy or inability of man to come unto Christ No man can come to me that is no man can believe in me or no man can give himself up to me for so it is explained in ver 35. foregoing where coming to Christ and believing in Christ are equivalent and of one sense The Proposition I shall speak to is No man of himself can come unto or believe in Christ without a divine power enabling and perswading him thereunto No man of himself that 's a Scripture-expression in Ephes 2. 8. Not of our selves No man of himself or by his own power can come unto Christ In this verse it is said No man can In the next verse its said Every man that hath heard and learnt of the Father comes to me which two places if compared together shew that no man of himself can but every man that is enabled by the power of a divine traction and the inward teaching of God who so teacheth the heart of man as thereby to draw and perswade it to receive and believe in Christ doth indeed believe in him unto salvation For the teaching and drawing of God are made both one and every one that is so taught every one that is thus drawn doth believe and no man without it doth believe in Christ unto salvation For the faith here meant is saving faith and so expounded ver 47. He that believeth on me hath eternal life The impotency and disability which our Saviour speaks of in the Text so far as I understand is a moral impotency and this lies much of it in the will of man An indisposition to and dislike of Christ to the acceptance of whom and against the acceptance of him the heart of man is possest with prejudice and forestalled by lusts forbidden and hindred by self-righteousness of his own which he maintains all he can If the handling of this point may lead you further into your own hearts to see the guile that lies in them and the sinful impotency that is in you it will be pains well spent For the handling whereof this inability of man to receive Christ unto salvation may be distinguisht into these two First a judicial disability of some men Secondly a natural disability of all men The first of these is when in the just judgement of God a man is insensibly I mean to his own sense secretly and spiritually smitten with unbelief with a mind that is alienated from Christ as Pharaâ—h was insensibly smitten with hardness of heart And of these it s spoken in John 12. 39 40. Therefore they could not believe because he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heares least they should see and understand and be converted that I should heal them This is a dreadful condition of men that are judicially hardened in their unbelief under impotency and disability with which they are smitten And who are they aud what is their sin may some say The people smitten with this are those that have had the light of the Gospel shining among them and have been allured by the offers of grace and Christ to turn unto and come to him but they have neglected and despised the offers that have been made and preferred the pursuit of their own lusts and interests before the entertainment of Christ Jesus these are the people The character is the character of us it was then of the Jewes for they are properly meant in this Text whom God followed by his Word and the Ministry thereof from time to time but they preferred their lusts before the teachings of God They believed not because they could not Joh. 12. 37. and they could not because God had smitten them and he smote them because they did not like to retain the knowledge of God in their minds as it is said of the Heathen in Rom. 1. And so when the offers of Christ are unpleasing and you prefer to keep acquaintance with your lusts then to receive him and the knowledge of God then he smites you that when you would you shall not believe as these Jewes that had seen so many Miracles yet could not believe And let it sit sadly upon your hearts that you that have received the light of the Gospel with such contempt that have had so many offers of grace and such long space of time of hearing and receiving the knowledge of Christ that you be not sealed up under a poenal unbelief even then when you think your selves to be believers that whereas it may be said of you in the dayes of your prosperity as it is in John 5. 40. You will not come to me that you may have life it so fall not out one day with you when you cry to believe that you shall not be able For many shall seek to enter saith our Saviour and shall not be able This point is hard of digestion to you but take heed you be not found in the number of them But this not the unbelief in the Text. Secondly there is a disability of all For no man can come to me c. And this the reason of man stumbles at almost above any point that God in making a Covenant with man of life and salvation should lay the condition of the Covenant upon an impossibility which is mans coming to Christ For the condition of salvation being laid upon mans coming to Christ and man being impotent unto it it both defeats the benefits of the Covenant and puts into the mouth of man an excuse whereby he may excuse himself for his not believing as not being able to perform impossible things nor indeed bound unto them as the Rule saith Nemo tenetur ad impossibilia Therefore this lets man loose unto an excuse that our Saviour should deliver these words No man can and seems to lay the blame upon God that layes the conditiou of the covenant of life upon that which cannot be by man performed But truly Mans reason errs in the objection that it makes as well as in the apprehension that it hath of spiritual and divine things for a thing
may be secundum quid or respectively impossible that is not simply so It s not simply impossible to rise from the dead for then it could never be but its impossible for a dead man to raise himself So to believe in Christ it s not impossible through grace the divine traction but to a man as he is in himself and in sin it is impossible Faith in Christ is not an impossible act but it is not possible by mans own power and therefore if Reason quarrel at God for laying the conditions of the Covenant of life upon impossibilities for not laying the condition of the Covenant in mans own power yet that Reason is without reason in it for the condition was once in mans power and the forfeiture of the Covenant the event may teach us to bless God that it is so no more that the condition of the Covenant lies no more in the power of man to forfeit it or in man only to accomplish it God hath given I do believe and doth give so much power unto man as may justifie his commanding man and condemning in case they do not observe his commands there is so much power given as may justifie God in both and so much knowledge as God doth give to any man in the world so much knowledge as any man hath or might have so much he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without excuse I think that 's a Principle and Maxime that will go far in all Divinity So much power as you have so much your excuse is taken from you so much you may believe and therefore are left inexcusable even those that have knowledge of God but by the light of Nature so much as they did know him are without excuse But certainly as it s said the purpose of Gods election stands not by our works but ex vocante of him that calleth Rom. 9. 11. so is his Covenant made good not by mans putting the condition but Gods giving of it else the covenant that he hath made with us should be a covenant of works or merits and not of grace if it did not stand upon Gods performance as it doth And therefore it s not laid upon an an impossible condition but a condition performed and made good by God himself I will put my law into their hearts and I will write it in their minds and they shall all know me that is shall believe in and love me and accept me for their God as the tenour of the covenant runs Heb. 8. 10. And the very reason why this covenant of life should not be defeated frustrated and made void therefore it s not committed to your power but reserved to the hands of the grace of God to make it good Rom. 4. 16. Therefore it is of faith that it might be of grace to the end that the Covenant might be sure to all the seed otherwise it had been as unsure as the Covenant that he made with Adam or as that which he made with Israel that God said was broken Heb. 8. 9. For in every Covenant that with Adam the promise was sure enough to the condition life was sure enough to the condition Do this if that condition had been performed it had been a sure covenant none surer What failed then the condition failed 〈◊〉 because it leaned on man and for that reason only it failed and therefore the covenant was not sure and this I have spoken all along to answer that objection that the covenant might be sure the condition doth not rest barely on the power of man But God performs the condition of the covenant that he makes with his people and I think he that gives the object of faith gives also the act of faith He that gave the serpent on the pole gives also the eye to look upon it that so Christ the object of your faith and faith that you might believe in him might be the gift of God For what avails Christ set forth to a people and no faith to lay hold on him Of what avail is the setting forth of an object where there is no eye to see it Grace I believe saving grace though I confess it is not so resented by many learned men comes from the purchase and merit of Christ as well as benefits of pardon The conditions and graces of the covenant come from the merit of Christ also without which there is no pardon since Christ is called Heb. 7. 12. the surety of a better Covenant an undertaker of the best Covenant Now all the question of the Text will be whose surety is Christ Is he Gods surety that makes it or mans surety with whom it is made Gods surety saith a learned man of latter times God and mans sure I think mans surety he is by giving satisfaction to the justice of God for the sins of man Gods surety he is by sending forth his Spirit to certifie and seal us Or thus he is surety for God that he will pardon us and sponsor or undertaker for us that we shall know God and believe in Christ and receive him for a Saviour therefore also called a Mediator of the same Covenant Now a Mediator is is not of one but of two parts in Zach. 13. 9. I will say You are my people they shall say The Lord is my God If Christ then be the surety of the Covenant Gods surety and ours for God and for us it will follow that Christ undertakes for us and that we have grace our believing our faith from his merit and his purchase Well then First I say all men are naturally unable to believe in Christ or to come unto him for though he be a fountain opened that was once a fountain sealed comparatively Zach. 13. 1. In that day a fountain shall be opened for sin and for uncleanness speaking in the dialect of the Jewes that is as in the Law there were sins and uncleanness sin to be purged by blood and uncleanness to be purified by water and there were expiations of sin and purgations of uncleanness represented in several Types So the Prophet shews that Christ shall answer them all 〈◊〉 Christ all these Types yet though he be a fountain opened as the impotent man said I have none to put me in Ioh. 5. 7. I lie lame and decrepid at the pool-side and when the water is moved have none to put me in So it may be said in this point there is a fountain opened in Christ Jesus for sin and uncleanness but none is able to come to it without a supernatural help and a divine hand go along with him The Gospel-preaching opens this fountain to you and this grace Pelagius rested upon and held that the grace of God was the preaching of the Word and opening the fountain to men For Orthodoxis verbis non abstinuit He as other Erronists that live in our times did not abstain from Orthodox words But what said Austin to them Nolumus istam gratiam
And so much for this Point That it is not in the natural power of man to believe Serm. 6 IF you please to keep in mind the order and method of handling this Point No man can come to me you may remember I propounded to handle these two things the impotency of natural and corrupt man and the repugnancy and opposition of him The impotency or disability of man was first in general to his own conversion in particular to his coming in to Christ which is the particular in the Text And having done with the Impotency or Adunamy of man which is a privative thing I now come to that which is positive and hath more of ths will in it though as I shewed it was a moral impotency The opposition to this work which will shew you that corrupt man is by his own will oppositely carried towards God And this point as the former speaks generally to the opposition that there is in man to God or to the holiness of God in two things First his contrariety Secondly his enmity to the holiness of God or his Law And it speaks particularly to the opposition that corrupt man doth make to Christ or the grace of Christ that is offered in the Gospel And that also in two things First his averseness to come and Secondly his resistance of grace when it s offered to him In which four steps this opposition may be handled and manifestly seen shewing you thereby what a miserable thing a natural man is being in statu belli in a state of war and hostility against the great God his Law his Grace and consequently an enemy and opposite to his own happiness And this point shall be opened to you to this end to vilifie and depress the pretended pride or worthiness of man and to exalt the freeness and power of Gods grace in the salvation of man For there are two eminent things in that Doctrine that you call the free grace of God Freeness and power First the contrariety of man in the state of corruption unto the nature of God is palpable and may be felt and so indeed had need to be rather then only taught And it is this Contrariety to God that renders the natural condition of man most deplorable and is a very good argument as there is any to prove that David in that confession of his in the 51 Psal did intend the confession of his own sin and not the sin of his Mother I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my Mother warm me For he went backward from his own trasient and actual sins to the original and root of his malady and aggravated his sin by this contrariety to God which saith no more then that expression of Paul Rom. 7. Sin that dwells in me or haply that in Isa 48. 8. Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb And concerning this contrariety of man to God so deplored I shew you these three things in general First this Contrariety to God is not acquired or gotten by iteration of acts and actual sins but is innate and bred in nature As the strings of an instrument are out of tune before you play upon them and they sound harshly to you so is the heart of man the faculties there are vitiated but not quite blotted out but all the strings are out of tune before they come to be actuated For they have a good saying in the Schools and t is true First the person viz. Adam infected mans nature but now the nature infects the person so that there is this contrariety of man to God by nature For Secondly the Image of God in man was before this contrariety in corrupted nature but this contrariety to God is now before the Image of God restored to man therefore it s said Ephes 5. 8. Ye were sometimes darkness but now are light And Ye were dead in sins but now are quickened Ephes 2. 1. Ye were the servants of sin but now ye are made free from sin Rom. 6. 17. that look as life and death servitude and freedom light and darkness are contraries one to another So are exprest the state of Nature and the state of Grace Thirdly there are in sin say the Schools two parts the first mans aversion or turning from God the second mans conversion or turning to himself or the creature The one of these hath more of sensuality and self the other bewrays more Contrariety to God But to come more particularly to the point This contrariety shews it self in this that an unregenerate man cannot by any principle that is in nature love God above all things or above himself which thing if well minded may let you in to see spiritual wickedness and not only carnal and sensual self may love God as a benefactor or as a servant to his own ends whom he may make use of to gain by and live upon Call this love of God if you will but such a man doth uti Deo ut fruatur mundâ— uses God that he may enjoy the world A Merchant may traffique and commerce with an enemy whom he hates so you may converse with God whom you hate in your hearts meerly to get by him and for matter of advantage This love of God is not amor amicitiae a love of friendship but concupiscentiae a love of lust to gain by God a love of parasytism and flattery and self-love of God Concerning which self-love I say particularly thus much First that every man by nature is brim-ful of inordinate self-love I call it inordinate self-love for there is a subordinate self-love which neither can nor ought to be put off God having linked together his own glory and mans happiness in himself For the chief end of man is to please God and enjoy him Moses in denying of himself to please God had an eye to the recompence of reward But that 's inordinate self love when a man seeks God in order to his own ends and neglecting his holiness which it is impossible a corrupt man should love only serves himself upon God and makes use of him in prayer or otherwise for his private interest either ut prosit or ne noceat that God may profit him and keep him in health or wealth or that God may not hurt him and lay judgements torments and plagues upon him as the love of a whore is for hire This is that inordinate self-love that a man hath to himself because he sets himself above God as making himself the end and God the means to attain that end Secondly this Self-love with the branches of it which are very many self-seeking self-pleasing self-ayming c. is the root and mother of all sin And therefore when the Apostle makes you a catalogue of sin he sets this in the front in 2 Tim. 3. 3. Men shall be lovers of their own selves And then they shall be filled with all politick sins and all sins of private interests and above all this and more then
the Holiness the Image of God rises originally from the hate of God himself there is the core of this disease you think if you hate man for the Image of God that is in him that you hate but man but the root of the disease lies in the hatred of God Therefore Christ teaches it John 15. 17. If the world hate you ye know it hated me before it hated you Men are ashamed to see this Fountain but the malice of the Devil shews whence this hatred doth arise Secondly every corrupt man more or less holds the truth of God in unrighteousness and doth as it were keep it under a bushel Rom. 1. 18. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteouss of men that hold the truth in unrighteousness That is that whereas there is a shining light that shines in man he hath common notions of right and wrong this he knows but he will not let it breath out in practice but lets his affections and lusts imprison and dam it up he will not let this light restrain his lusts There is no man living that lives up to his own light he knows more then he will practice and put forth to the glory of God in his place and family and therefore there is wrath to him There is no man in this place let him be never so vile but hath some beams of light Amat lucentem edit arguentem he loves the shining light but hates the reproving and convincing light This also is the sin of the Devil Thirdly this hatred appears in this man is angry that he may not sin impune and do what he will without controll and if he cannot then he fastens his hatred upon God God hath given him grace but he would fain enjoy and serve lusts and pleasures freely and would have impunity not to be punished he would sin and escape sin and be saved sin and be happy this is his temper And if the wrath of God be revealed that he cannot do so then he is carried out to an utter hatred of God himself for if he could he would continue and go on in the height of his iniquity and would not be punished but could wish that God were out of his way If he could disarm his justice he would and therefore he can be content that God give life and being and fuel to maintain his lusts but if he see that God come out to punish then he wishes with all his heart rather that God were not that there were no such inflictor of punishment upon man These are the secret thoughts the eruptions and belchings secret breakings up of hatred that are in the hearts of men to God And if you ask for an instance of it out of man I can give none but the Devil that in all these three steps wishes that God were not And this I have briefly said to shew the enmity of man to God that besides sensual lusts there should be such a poison in his spirit against the holy God which we hear of often in the Scripture the wisdom of the flesh or appetite call it what you will in Rom. 8. 7. is enmity unto God for it is not subject to the law of God let him be never so wise nor indeed can be And in Col. 1. 21. And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works And let no man marvel at it the reason is this the love of God will not stand with any thing that is better loved If any thing be better loved then God is then it turns to hatred Ye adulterers and adulteresses saith the Apostl Jam. 4. 4. meaning worldly men know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God Now if you recollect these two Arguments the Corruption and Contrariety that is in natural man to God and the Enmity that is in him I think you will say the first part is proved That no man can come to Christ by reason uot only of the impotency but the opposition that is in him This in general to the Opposition Serm. 8 NOw I am to go on particulary to handle this Opposition First mans unwillingness to believe and come in to grace offered Secondly his resistance against converting grace that offers it self First then I will shew you the unwillingness of corrupt natural man to accept of grace offered And this is a point wherein the demerit of man and the condemning Justice of God thereupon doth appear without all excuse of mans self without all exception against the Grace of God for what exception can man make against his condemnation that is willing to be condemned what excuse can he make for his unbelief that is unwilling to believe that whereas all creatures in the world do affect that most wherein their happiness doth lie and are infinitely carryed towards it in the persuite whereof no creature can be indifferent yet corrupt sinful man doth not only oppose the commands of God break his bonds asunder and cast his cords away Psal 2. 2. but is also unwilling unto salvation to which he is invited by so many solicitations to which he is drawn by so many powerful arguments and perswasions of the Word of God under the Gospel as are afforded him And this is the point I handle That man naturally is unwilling to be converted to turn to Christ that he may be saved I think you will hardly believe this point But it may justly be said he cannot come because he will not for in John 5. 40. this point is clearly proved You will not come to me that ye may have life And it is the complaint that our Saviour makes over Jerusalem Mat. 13. 37. How often would I have gathered thee and ye would not And in Prov. 1. 24. I have called and ye have refused I have stretched out my hands and none regarded you have set at naught my counsel and would have none of my reproof but have cast my words behind your backs Nay you would have none of me saith God Psal 81. 11. Israel would none of me They that have not heard of salvation offered do not seek it they to whom it hath been offered do neglect it and they to whom it is commended by all commendations they have despised it Conversion is as little beholding to the will of man as to any thing that whereas friends would have their friends and one relation would have another when they know Christ they would have them know Christ also The woman of Samaria called the whole Town out to Christ Conversion is least beholding to the Queen of Faculties as they call the Will of man which is rather the slave of all the rest the Captain of rebellion whereby man is unwilling to his own conversion and faith in Christ Jesus And therefore it is said in 1 Joh. 1. 13. We are born of God regenerate not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of
grace published in the Word and left to the management of man convictively shews what even his Elect are that without his powerful hand to strike the stroke the work will not be done for the Elect of God as well as others being only morally moved and perswaded to Conversion do use the same shifts and Tergiversations make as much resistance and shew the same unwillingness as other men do and therefore take this for a rule and find it in your selves that God commonly convinces a man before he converts convinces man of his own impotency and opposition before he put forth his own arm and therefore leaves him to his own recusancy and resistance to â—ry his own strength and a long time lets him alone to his own purposes which will savour of pride enough untill God shew him the difference between the report of the word and the arm of the Lord revealed for although the word of God the Gospel that we preach unto you is the fittest means in the world of an external instrument to convert the heart of man and is furnisht with all requisites to work on the heart yet it s but like a key very suitable to the springs of a lock and put into it that will not shut the bolt and open the door without a hand to turn the key as well as put it in so if the Word preacht be never so fit to meet with the springs in mans heart yet if there be not a strong hand to turn the key the heart will not be opened so that when God convinces by the offer of grace and leaves you to your own acceptance little good will be done without the putting forth of his own arm to the work Secondly With these offers made in the Word God in Conversion goes out with his arm and so Conversion is wrought in those he purposes to call by the instrument morally by perswasion by Gods hand supernaturally so with the word that faith Lazarus come forth there goes a work of power to effect it this power goes forth with the Word as the hand with the ax with the instrument with the key for the honour of the ordinance And therefore it s told you while Peter spoke Acts 10. 44. the Holy Ghost fell upon the hearers meaning that there went out with the Word the power of the Holy Ghost to convert them that God calls according to his purpose he takes hold of their hearts with his powerful arm and brings them in yet not without means as if they were converted by Enthusiasms but in an ordinary way as I may clear it by a comparison frictions rubbings used sometimes to a people in a swound are very profitable to recall life where there was life before but if used to a dead carkass out of which life is gone doth nothing to beget or recall life so are the tenders of grace offered with exhortations and counsels motions and knocking 's if there be life of grace in the heart they are profitable to revive to call in to refresh grace but if used to a natural man to a man dead in sins of themselves they work nothing they leave him as dead as they found him untill there be a new life of grace put into him which is the work that I contend for to be of God Thirdly By these offers of grace and exhortations God takes from man all excuse all the light that God gives to man doth tend to render man unexcusable though it be but natural light for so far as it directs Rom. 1. 20. that they might be without excuse for what for not believing in Christ no that light went not so far no light leaves a man without excuse farther then it goes Gospel-light goes farther then natural light and convinces in a farther degree and proportion as the light is greater and as far as it convinces so far it will leave without excuse and therefore there is no man that hath Christ offered that is enlightned convinc't hath tenders made unto him but is left without excuse and though men in wantonness of disputes may weave a web of excuses and muster them up against God yet no man in agony of conscience upon his death-bed or at Gods Tribunal shall- be able to make any excuse for the neglect and resistance of the grace of God but shall be like him in Mat. 22. speechless he might have said somewhat for himself as to them that called him to the feast but there was no excuse to be made to the King There are two cases wherein all excuses are taken from man First In case of voluntary impotency by a mans own default as if he imbezel the stock committed to his hand and would make an excuse for non-payment of a debt though he may say he have it not that serves not his turn for you had it and the stock by you is imbezelled Or secondly if he be opposite and resist as if a man that will not or cannot see because he shuts the window and will not let the light in it s no excuse for him to say I do not see because its a voluntary act of his own to shut out the light in both cases he is without excuse But especially I lay weight on the latter the resistance of man and his opposition for there is no man living that rests in a simple impotency but resists and shuts his eyes and makes opposition to the grace of God tendred to him light is come into the world and men love darkness rather then light this is the condemnation Fourthly God in the Gospel seldom or never offers grace to a man but he affords and furnishes him with some degree of light and power to do more then he doth to go farther then he doth for in Rom. 1. 17. the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against those that hold the truth of God in unrighteousness that is for not living up to their light nor doing so much as they may or can no man in the world untill God work upon his heart savingly liveâ— up to his own rule neither doth facere quod in se est do so much as he might and hath power to do and therefore God is no way bound to give converting grace if a man will not imploy one talent so far as he may go with one what reason hath God to give that man five or ten talents None at all when the power and grace of God given is resisted and opposed and neglected What reason is there that men should cavil against the Lord and say I had not so many talents whereas he did not use the one he had no man is without a talent every man hath somewhat whereby he may trade for God and because he doth not do it certainly the Lord is free and clear if he do not give him more if he do not give him converting grace God will I say be clear when he is quarrelled at by man Answ 2.
signifying that a man that doth not come to Christ for the love and service of Christ but to reap those advantages that self-love spies out in Gospel offers that man may be a resister and opposer of Grace The third Premise is to shew the deplorable condition into which the resisters of offered grace do plunge themselves though the time of this life be sweetned with the affluence of all earthly commodities and contentments all resistance of Grace is dangerous but that which is final and out stands the patience of God of that I may say there remains no sacrifice for that sin but a fearful expectation of judgement which I need no further to prove unto you then to call in two or three witnesses to depose unto it and the first of them speaks in Heb. 2. 3. for if the word spoken by Angels was stedfast and every transgression c. what then how shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation neglect is a word somewhat lower then this that we call resistance and yet how shall we escape sinners against the Law of God though there be a punishment allotted them yet they may escape but for the neglect of Salvation great so great Salvation there is no escape there is a peremptory condemnation belongs to such In Ezek. 24. 13. is the second witness Because I have purged thee and thou wast not purged thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more untill I have caused my fury to rest upon thee because I purged thee by my Ordinances the application and use of them and thou wast not purged c. God will not alwayes wash a blackmore his offended patience turns to fury The third witness is Prov. 1. 24 26. Because I have called and ye refused I have stretched out my hands and no man regarded I also will laugh at your calamity and mock when your fear cometh there is no comfort for such men that refuse Gods call stand out against grace offered for when they call and cry God will laugh at their calamity Oh the misery of men living under the Gospel that stand it out against the offers of Grace therein made which are serious and in good earnest I will handle this point distinctly proceeding in certain propositions First That unto Countries Cities Towns Families Single persons upon whom the Sun of Righteousness that is the Gospel doth arise with healing in his wings God doth afford a day of Grace which he doth to you that now live in which day he proclaimes peace to such rebels as cast down their arms and come in and accept the pardon and Grace offered upon these terms and this is their day of visitation or as it is called their day let every one consider it and lay it sadly to heart In Luke 19. 42 44. Oh Jerusalem now that the things pertaining to thy peace are offered thee this is thy day the time of thy visitation our Saviour that wept at the death of Lazarus did weep now at the blindness of this people that did not see and own their day wherein their Saviour appeared to offer them grace and so great a mercy Oh that you would say within your selves every one of you What have I a day wherein there is saving Grace offered to me as the terms of my eternal peace have I a time of visitation afforded by the Lord Jesus Oh that I might work out my salvation while it is called to day before the night comes upon me for there is no day but hath a night wherein no man can work Be tenderly affected to your own souls for this I tell you and shall clear it by Scripture there is not one of you that stand here this day but have a day afforded a time of visitation wherein the things pertaining to your eternal peace are held forth to you with what earnestness doth the Holy Ghost speak in Heb. 3. 7. To day if ye will hear his voyce ver 13. while it is called to day ver 15. while it is said to day three times in one Chapter and oh that you would consider it while it is day while it s said to day and while it s called today And the Apostle exhorts with all diligence not to take the grace of God in vain not to frustrate to neglect or resist it by this argument Now is the accepted time Now is the day of salvation 2 Cor. 6. 1 2. t is a comfortable and yet a sad point comfortable that there is a day sad if you outstand it and it be taken from you I blame not in any man the desire of a long day of grace for England for London for thy self provided that the hope of a long day make not the morning a truant and though I blame not the desire yet I blame their choice that choose the eleventh hour of the day to come into the vineyard the last hour of their lives of their day of grace before they come into this vineyard to work out their salvation Oh that you would awake from your deadly sleep betimes in the morning of your youth for by this means the day of grace will be long and your day in grace will be long too such will the benefit be that you shall reap by it and let it sharply enter into your spirits that God hath set a time to Towns to Countries and single persons to you and me when we must be converted and brought into the state of salvation or never a point clear according to the Scripture however some men dispute it and the day of grace is not alwayes so long as the time of life before thou dye the Word of God the means may be a dead letter to thee no man knows the length of this day of grace how long the door will stand open to him but this is certain the more of the glass is run out the shorter is behind the longer day of grace England hath seen and past the shorter the day that is to come And therefore let these monitors strike and prevail with you The one is Luk. 13. 25. where our Saviour as elsewhere inculcates this point When once the master of the house hath shut the door then if you knock he shall say I know you not from which place it is plain that there is a time when the door is shut and will stand open no longer And then you may Cry to God for mercy and Salvation But you see the answer that will be made Depart be gonâ— I will not own you nor know you because when the door of grace stood open you came not in The other is Heb. 12 15. 17. I take clear places because it s somewhat a quarrelled point Beware look diligently marke you lest any fail of the grace of God for you know that when he Esau would have inherited the Blessing he was rejected and found no place for repentance though he sought it carefully with tears A Place worthy out
the stroak this teaching of God which teaches you to believe that gives you the particular assurance of salvation And therefore though God have sent Christ yet there are thousands of reprobate and rejected persons in the world It is Christ in you and you in him by Faith that strikes the stroak Seventhly The point of Gods sending Christ affords sweet meditation but the sense of Gods drawing thy soul unto Christ affords sweet consolation In the one thou mayst see the love of God to the world for God so loved the world John 3. 16. By the other thou mayst see his special love to thee concerning which you find it written by the Apostle Gal. 2. 20. He loved me and gave himself for me No man can say this word me until he be drawn unto Christ And when is that may some say that is not my point now to handle yet in brief I answer First When thou art come then thou hast been drawn If thou canst embrace and receive Christ as a Saviour and a Lord then thou hast been drawn Col. 2. 6. And therefore as I may say of the shadow on the Dyal that is gone to another line though you cannot see the motion yet you may conclude it is moved because it is gone to another line So you may certainly conclude that you are gone from the state of nature to the state of grace when there is a reception and embracing of Christ Jesus Secondly When thy enmity and opposition is removed and those things that obstructed thy faith are taken away Gods drawing doth that If there be an inclination to Christ as the chief Good come in place of the aversation that was there before if there be a complacency come in stead of the hardness and antipathy that was there before It is made one of the first signs of grace I will pour out upon them the Spirit of grace and supplication and they shall look on him whom they have pierced and mourn and be in bitterness Zach. 12. 10. spoken of the Jews This is a sign that there is a great change as when light comes into a chamber we conclude that the shutts of the window are removed so when you find a new light a new disposition of the heart to God you may conclude the obstructions are removed and the enmity is taken away So much for the second Corollary drawn from this point Use 3 Thirdly If no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him Hence we may learn how much faith and coming to Christ being both one ver 35. are mistaken in the world the great hinge on which the salvation of man turns It is undertaken and entertained as men think with great easiness and at pleasure performed without any sense or sensible need of Gods drawing without which Christ teaches us that no man can come to him I shall make it appear that this coming to Christ is I will not say hard and difficult for that intimates some possibility of mans performance but that it is altogether unperformable without the assistance of divine power That saying A man may believe in Christ if he will to take in that by the way is true and good if it be taken in a right sense for so the Scripture Rev. 22. 17. Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely But then I must say and I think Reason will go with me that every wish is not a will and every velleity as they call it is not a will set on edge an earnest thirsty will after Christ Jesus He that hath a will wrought by God and the truth is we differ from other men only in this all confess him to be free in believing But man is not made by himself free but the grace of God frees the will of man for if the Son make you free then are you free indeed And no man doth any thing in the world with greater freedom then a willingness to believe when of nilling he is made by God willing as Austin saith such a soul being freed from its servitude to thirst after the righteousness of God is pronounced blessed Matth. 5. 6. We may safely say he hath the seed of faith that hath this will in him But every Balaams wish to die the death of the righteous and every one that saith I will but doth not Matth. 21. 30. this is not reckoned in Scripture to be a will therefore men are as much mistaken in their willing as in their believing The Reasons of the opinion of this easiness of believing are three Reason 1 First The mistaking of Leah for Rachel My meaning is the taking of a Dogmatical for a saving Faith which is the common mistake of the world that live under the Gospel For this is but light oar that lies near day as the Mettalists say though it looks like gold it is not gold It looks like the Faith that saves but it is not it For this as the Apostle saith in another case they willingly know not This is not the Faith that is hard and difficult You must not look to be saved by a Christ without you but by a Christ within you For to be in the Faith and to have Christ in you is all one 2. Cor. 13. 5. As there are that may be called Disciples outwardly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 2. 28. and there are others that Christ calls Disciples indeed or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really John 8. 31. So there is a Faith that brings forth a profession of Christ as the blade in the stony ground And there is a Faith that brings a man into possession of Christ and that is the Faith Now it is a fatal mistake of many men to reckon themselves in Christ and a state of salvation by a Faith that makes them only Disciples outwardly For even the greatest part of the called are not chosen That Faith must needs be unsaving that is consistent with predominant lusts that encounters not raigning sins For all resistance of sin in a Scripture-phrase is called conquest For in the resistance of it there is as much love seen to God as in the conquest of it though there be not so much power seen That which is the best kind of Faith and saving is that which is most hard difficult and impossible to man The very Faith of Miracles that you read of sometimes in the Scripture is not so hard as saving Faith to come unto and believe in Christ Certainly this is to be known those that came short of saving Faith have yet attained to the Faith of Miracles as Judas and others And therefore let us set these two the Faith which saves and that which saves not in front one against the other and see what the Scripture saith of both And you shall find the drawing power of God affixt to the saving faith but not to the other In John 2. 23. many believed on Christ when they saw the miracles that he did
in your natural condition you have some thing which you call your gain Phil. 3. 7. and if you should presently die you have something to trust unto and while these remain with you it is not a hard thing for you to believe and therefore a man trusts to his fleshly confidence till he come to know Christ Jesus the Lord But when the soul is unhorst of her false confidence and true faith hath dismantled all mans strong holds that there is nothing to relieve it but faith in Christ when a man is left naked as Adam was of himself and his own righteousness and a man hath nothing to trust unto but the word of God whom he hath offended and yet now he must trust to it and venture his soul upon it when troubles and fearful questions do arise then you will find no sea no Euripus is more unconstant then the heart of man nothing more hard to fix this will make him cry out with Francis Spira Oh that I had but one dram of Faith O that my Faith were fixt and my heart by Faith these are the Reasons of that opinion the easiness of believing Now I must shew the contrary to this opinion about the easiness of Faith and to that end I shall say thus much that it is not properly said to be hard for a natural man to come to Christ for that may denote a possibility but that man cannot come without Gods drawing which I shall endeavour to prove First Because the Scripture makes it the work of God and the gift of God the work of God for he draws the gift of God for it is given to believe And in some places gives that as the reason why men cannot believe of themselves as in the text No man can except God draw which is given as the reason of the unbelief of these murmurers against Christs doctrine and ver 64. 65. its said Christ knew from the beginning who should not believe For no man can come to me except it were given him of my Father And our Saviour as appears by this thought it a good proof that they that were not drawn by Gods work nor had faith given them of his Father could not believe in him or come to him That faith is the gift of God it is said expresly Phil. 1. 29. to you it is given to believe sincerely And Matth. 13. 11. to you it is given to know the mysteries And Ephes 2. 8. you are saved by grace through Faith and this not of your selves it is the gift of God And Secondly That you may see that assigning of our Faith to Gods work and Gods gift doth deny man to be the social as well as sole cause of his faith and that God only teaches the heart to believe you may observe that it is spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of opposition unto and not of Composition or Concurrence of man with God in way of Co-ordination where the Scripture speaks of God it speaks of God as the sole cause Mark the antithetical places where it is not only said that God works it but God works it and not man Flesh and blood hath not revealed this to thee saith Christ to Peter Matth. 16. 17. but my Father our sufficiency is not of our selves to the least thought but of God 2 Cor. 3. 5. there is an antithesis excluding our selves Not of our selves but it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. As therefore they say in Philosophy God is Causa totius entis which doth deny all concausality he made us not we our selves in the hundred Psalm so it may be said that we are his creatures in grace as well as in nature We make not a haire of our selves no not the colour and shall we not lay it to heart In nature did I make my self why shall not I give as much to God in regeneration as generation seeing God is seen in the one as well as in the other Thirdly Faith in Christ is a distinguishing grace a work that differences those that are sheep from them that are not those that are given from them that are not given to Christ this is proved Matth. 13. 11. to you it is given to them it is not given to the babes it is revealed but hidden from the wise Matth. 11. 25. This coming unto Christ to speak plainly is a fruit and effect of election all that are chosen to Eternal Life shall come in unto and believe in Christ they shall all know me Heb. 8. 11. both the least and the greatest every man that is taught of God doth believe Joh. 6. 45. If any man living can know himself to be Elected of God how must he know it we must know our election if at all ascendendo not descendendo not prying into the abysse but beginning at the lowest round of the ladder my regeneration and Faith in Christ and from thence ascend As many as were ordained to eternal life believed Act. 13. 48. a place as it pinches hard so men have set their wits on the tenters to make something of it or rather nothing not as were qualified and disposed as say some but appointed or ordained It s vain to wash away the sence of the word We know it is called The faith of Gods elect and that it is said the election hath obtained Rom. 11. 4. our Saviour saith John 10. 26. you see the works that I do miracles that one would think might work faith but there is a secret reason why you believe not Because you are not of my sheep for all they do believe in me and this is my constant doctrine for this I have said unto you It is said of the Councel of Trent by him that wrote the history of that Councel that when those that were for the will and power of man disputed with the other party by reason they seemed to carry all before them to get the victory but when the other party that was for the Grace of God against the will of man came to back their arguments by Scripture not by reason then they went as far backward as forward It is objected that it is not likely that all that in that Congregation were ordained to life eternal did believe at that time It is but a quibble which we can speak no further unto then the text doth It is enough that the reason of believing is drawn from their ordination to life as John 6. 37. all that the Father giveth me shall come to me and if all that God giveth to Christ shall come to Christ we conclude that it is proper to those that are the elect of God to those God gives it in those God works it Serm. 20 NOW I come to lay down Reasons to prove true Faith to be the work of a supernatural hand taken from faith it self and the Reasons will be eight or nine because I would humble-men out of themselves and out of those vain thoughts that
the act of God To speak plainly there can be no coming to Christ except there be first a drawing of God For no man can come to me except my Father draw him They are both of them delivered in Jer. 31. 18. 19. Turn thou me and I shall be turned After I was turned I repented there is the act of Ephraim after I had received the passive Conversion that God had drawn and turned me There is no resurrection from the dead without first a resuscitation the word and power of Christ goes forth before the act of Lazarus the Sun shines upon the wall before the wall can re-shine any beams of the Sun from it so there must be the work of God upon the heart the grace of God must shine there before the heart can return take hold and carry the soul to Jesus Christ And there are two Premises two Propositions that do carry on this Conclusion in the generality of it That no man will or can be saved if left to his own disposal or sufficiency Propos 1 First That every man in the world must reckon of himself to be one that naturally and of himself is come short of the glory of God And oh that this Point had a sensible Impression upon us all Rom. 3. 23. All have sinned and are come short of the glory of God the Justification of a sinner is Gods glory all are not only in but under sin Rom. 3. 9. nay all are not only fallen under sin but all are shut up concluded under sin Galat. 3. 22. all are not only shut up under sin in their own thoughts but by the Scripture shut up under sin the Scripture is the key whereby man is shut up and what possibility of escaping is there when all the world are shut up and certain it is that a man departed from God and fallen into himself is in the Scripture account in a lost estate and dead condition for that time as the Prodigals Father said of his son This my son was lost and dead but now upon his return he saith He was lost but now is found he was dead but is now alive Luke 15. 32. From that time that a man comes into Christ Jesus he is alive a man may live and yet be dead there is no time wherein you are to be reckoned alive and found but only from the time that you believe and take hold of Christ Jesus and therefore in 2 Cor. 5. 15. That henceforth those that live should not live unto themselves but to him that dyed for them and rose again which argues that all the time before they lived to themselves that is were dead That 's the first Proposition Propos 2 Secondly That every man in the world ought to reckon himself to lye still in this state of coming short until he be drawn to come in savingly to receive Jesus Christ For he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5. 11. For so I would preach those out of Christ all of them dead I would unchrist them of that vain opinion that they have of being in him The Scripture is plain he remains under wrath till he come to believe receive and lay hold on Christ John 3. 36. For this is the only and necessary Condition of being saved that God hath assigned and proclaimed to lost man this is the new door for man shut out of Paradise to return to the Tree of life this is the only passible this is the certain way of re-instating man fallen short into capacity of the glory of God the Justification of a sinner is the glory of God and there is no other way but this those that you harp upon are false ways and to be abhorred Psal 119. For there are these two Reasons of it Reason 1 First It would be a disparagement and diminution to Christ if there should be found a second Saviour a second Way Truth and Life and therefore in 2 Cor. 11. 4 the Apostle challenges the Corinthians to find out if they can another Gospel another Christ another Spirit that cannot be found there is no other saving way but this The first Adam was but one and he lost all the second Adam must be but one neither as able to save all that are saved as the other was to destroy all that are destroyed Not that there is an equalitie in the number that are saved by the one and the damned and destroyed by the other that needs not to be but that the one is as only in saying as the other was in sinning Reason 2 Secondly That Christ is the only Condition of salvation appears by this because this will not stand with other Conditions of being saved which Man harps upon as works repentance sorrow for sin But there is but one because Christ will not stand with these For if Christ would stand with or consist with them then he should not be the onely way and the saving Truth Christ is made voyd by them Christ is of no effect to you if you will be justified by the works of the Law but if Christ be taken hold of by you then they are made void by Christ then the Righteousness of God makes void your own righteousness Not having my own as the Apostle saith in the like case Rom. 11. Either grace makes works to be no works or works makes grace to be no grace signifying that it must be this and not that not this and that not this with that which is necessarie to bring you to salvation but that it is Christ and not your own performances and works for without coming to Christ no salvation and no man can come to me except he be drawn that makes Demonstration thus A man cannot be saved except he receive Christ he cannot receive Christ except God draw him in therefore man left to his own disposal and the sufficiency of his own power cannot be saved this sum stands in plain Scripture terms This is the doctrinal Inference the practicall Use which I told you I would intermix with this Doctrinal is as followes First That we carefully maintain the necessity and soveraigntie the freeness of Gods grace and the power of it in the conversion of man Practic Use This is one practical and excellent Use that you carefully maintain these as Advocates of the grace of God the grace of God must be maintained and defended in these properties of it there hath rarely been found in the whole world in this point any man no not Pelagius himself that hath universally excluded or exploded the concurrence of the grace of God in the Course of salvation but have allowed it either for the inchoation or beginning of conversion or in the augmentation and increase of Grace or else in the consummation and finishing of it either for the sole work or the social work of it in and with man even very shame and the evidence of the point together forbids man to exclude that to which he
the Scripture But yet we must come to some Original to some first mover that moves all the rest and is not it self moved by any whether we go forward or backward Whom he Elected them he called and whom he Called he Justified and whom he Justified them he Glorified and so from step to step but somewhere we must begin now go Retrogade in the same line Whom he Glorified he Justified and whom he Justified he Called whom he Called he Elected or Predestinated You must come at last to the first Original whereof there cannot be given any higher cause or reason so then the reason of the difference is not Orginally in Man himself somewhere we must begin from whence we cannot rise higher Now the free Grace of of God is the first round in the Ladder of our Salvation not any thing in Man or the will or work of Man Here are three things coucht under this head First There is a difference made between every Man that is saved and every man that is not for all that is saving is difference making whereby a man is taken out of the heap and common lump of mankind A vessel of honour is made indeed of the same lump but differs much from a vessel of dishonour there belongs a difference and a separation to every man that is saved a separation not such as they call local from the wicked of the world but moral whereby his spiritual Condition is separated from all the not saved Though all grace that is discriminant and differencing is not saying that I grant yet all that is saving is discriminant And therefore you that will prove your selves to be in state of salvation are bound to prove the difference that is between you and others that are not saved nor can be Secondly God is the maker of this saving difference between the saved and others In every step of your salvation there is some difference made in Election there are Elect and others Reus 11. 7. In calling there is an actual difference between the called and others c. That God is the maker is implied in the 1 Cor. 14. 7. Who makes thee to differ from another some body made thee to differ and therefore he that calls himself converts himself is like him that begets himself or raises himself from the dead It s a meâ—â—â— imaginary thing and if these two be true then Thirdly It will follow that the reason of this difference made by God is not originally in man himself the reason of comparative praeterition is not sin for then all might be rejected because all men are under sin The reason of Comparative election is not good works holiness or worthiness of man for by that reason he should alwayes take the best of men and leave the worst but we find the contrary that God hath taken the worst Publicans and harlots go into Heaven before you and therefore there is a famous place Rom. 9. 11. That the purpose of God might stand it is not made good by the works of man himself not of works but of him that calleth is the purpose of God according to election made good They consult the Glory of Grace but ill that pitch the reason of Gods electing or calling upon some Paritie or Probitie or fit temper of man himself so our men lisp now adayes towards a quarter-Pelagianisme for I will not say it is semi-Pelagianisme they say God calls man and indues him with saving Grace for that littleness or probitie in man But is this littleness or honesty they talk of of God or man is it a work of nature or Grace if it be a work of Grace it is of God and is no otherwise a reason of Conversion then as one step may be in order to another grace in order to grace All this while there is no offence But if it be a moral temper and of man himself then it is so much worse they make God to build on man and to take a moral humane Foundation to a supernatural gracious Act to build supernatural grace upon the ground of common probity and honesty this doth disparage the Grace of God for as God in Creating of the world did not work 〈◊〉 matter praeexistent so we say it is in the Act of Grace 't is the Creation of a new Creature which brings him out of nothing and not works him out of any praeexistent matter It is true I confess that the best disposition that can be in man to come to the Lord Jesus and believe in him is that which is called an Infant-like temper of meekness and softness and tenderness for our Saviour gives that rule Except a man be like a little Child he cannot enter into the Kingdome of Heaven Peradventure he doth not mean the Glory of everlasting Life but the Church state he cannot be a true Member of the Visible Church unless he be made tractable teachable meek and soft But this is not a meer Moral or Natural temper as if Nature should lead on Grace but 't is a subaction a moulding the heart by Word and Spirit to a willingness to be brought to nothing for Christ for there is something in the work of mans Conversion that 's like a preparatory to the main work Point 21 Secondly If we be true advocates of grace we will disclaim all worthiness of man to be the first mover and all power of man as to be the first worker of Conversion God is both the first mover and the first worker in the Conversion and bringing man unto Salvation A man would think that a man may rather merit Heaven and Eternal Life by the acting of grace then he can merit grace by the acting of nature yet we say neither The one of them the Papists hold That there may be merit of eternal life by a mans own acting of Grace But workes of Grace died in the blood of Christ for that 's the best of their opinion But that a man-should merit Grace the first Grace by the works of Nature or by any good works done by Nature that 's a thing beyond the understanding and imagination both of us and them for Heaven as the reward of gracious works we have a promise if we walk with God in holiness but for the first grace as the reward of works of Nature we have no promise that for performance of what lies in us by the power of Nature God should give us grace therefore we are and that justly more offended at the Doctrine of merit of Grace then at the Doctrine of merit of salvation the reason is because Grace is more unproportionable to works of Nature then Heaven is to works of Grace and the Kingdome of Heaven more proportionable to works proceeding from grace then Grace it self is to those works that proceed from Nature and therefore it s too high to conceive of merit of Grace which is a merit of beginnings and first things and that 's not usual but
Wherein there are three things to be taken up First That it is the Father of Christ that draws all the saved unto Christ He draws all the appointed Members that are fore-given to his Son by him The Father hath given them and the Father that hath given them draws them Every one that is the Fathers gift to Christ is the Fathers workmanship drawn to and created in Christ Jesus For the gift of God which is by Election is made good by the drawing of God which is by his calling or his operation according thereunto now because they are the gift of God by election therefore they shall surely come to him by the Fathers traction All that the Father gives to me shall come to me ver 37. Why because my Father will draw them and if my Father will draw they shall come And therefore God in Joh. 15. 1 2. is compared to a husbandman that sets in the graff Christ is the stock or body of the tree that bears and feeds it and the Believer is the graff that is set in by the husbandman Here is a distinct operation God sets Christ sustains and maintains it and he that is called and converted is the graff planted into this Tree and saved by Christ Jesus Object But doth not Christ say in Joh. 12. 32. that he draws I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men to me How is it then said Except my Father draw him Answ Though I shall not exclude and shut out Christ himself and the Spirit of God from their agency in this work in bringing men to Christ yet we may thus distinguish upon this objection That Christ being crucified and lifted up draws all men to him objectively as a healing Serpent set on the pole to be looked upon by the eye of Faith But God the Father draws to Christ effectively and powerfully working that power and life in them whereby they may come begetting a new nature and giving a heart propending unto Christ and closing with him And therefore if God should send Christ and leave man to himself as most think they can believe and be converted by themselves this great inconveniency thereof would follow that the Election of God would be defeated and made frustrate but those he gives he makes to come to him to whom they are given and so becomes both Christs Father and theirs The second Branch of this fourth Observation is this By those words Except my Father draw there is no meanâ—â—g to shut out Christ or the Spirit from this drawing work for the work of the Trinity in converting man is undivided But shall I tell you by the relative name of Father is as often in other places meant except man be drawn by a Divine hand an omnipotent power and operation of God for that 's the thing that Christ intends that no man can come and be a believer in him except it be by a Divine power and operation wrought in him above man himself so that it is not any way intended to divide the Three Persons or separate any of them from this work but to divide the work of God from man and this is the reason that some men do affirm omnipotentissâ—mam potestatem a most almighty power to go forth from God that works the conversion of man because it 's said Except my Father draw him and truly I know not why that expression should be quarrelled at if we do but consider the impotency of man to believe in Christ and be converted if we consider next that it 's called a Creation created in Christ Jesus and a resurrection from the dead and if also we consider what the Apostle saith of it Ephes 1. 18. where there is weight of words the exceeding greatness of Gods power according to that which God put forth in raising Christ from the dead we need not be ashamed to say that God puts forth an almighty power in making man believe nor to look upon it as an uncouth expression Thirdly I observe from this Point How impotent and unable man is to that which is his greatest concernment I know we are weak in other things but to be weak in that which is the main concernment of salvation is sad This I would have you to observe that in that wherein your life lies and the way to life in that very thing you are weak as water and no more able to believe than to keep the Law and yet you will say by rote I think many times that it is impossible to keep the Law of God but will not grant but that you can believe and yet let it be observed here that God hereby signifies that you are as impotent to this that is the great concernment of man as to any thing else And There might be a fourth thing observable God that thus imploys his power doth it in his drawing man to Christ See the method whereby God will save you he will not go to bring you to the Father himself the Father to the Father immediately as to an absolute Judge as Luther saith What have I to do with an absolute God he will damn me and not abate me a farthing of the righteousness of the Law which I cannot keep It 's true he could have made man able to keep his Law and have made man perfect but God will keep his own way and save man in and by his Son Why may some say this is about why doth he bring men to Christ Surely God is so strict in keeping the way that he hath set for saving man because that is his Covenant and therefore brings to his Son Christ that he may save them and as the husbandman will graft you into him And let this that is Gods way be your way if you could find another do not look after it By this you shall know the power of God whether it be in you by this which is the work of it It sets you not to other ways but draws to Christ The Use of this fourth Observation may be three-fold Use 1 First Learn hence That a regenerate man is twice Gods Creature I may safely call him so once as he is a man in his natural estate made up of Soul and Body next as a regenerate man created in Christ and if men consider it well that a believer is called a new man a new Creature why should there be lesse power why should we think it lesse work to make a new man then to make a man to be Lay your heads to consider this point and you will find it very difficult why it should be more the hand of God in this then to make man to be man hath a natural life what is that to the purpose for natural life is but a death in comparison and therefore it s said them that are dead in Trespasses and Sins hath he quickned and whereas there was in the matter of our first creation no propension to become a man more
then any thing else so there was no opposition but now to this new creature there is not only in us no propension but there is more there is an antipathy and opposition so as God hath somewhat to take away as well as somewhat to give I will take away the heart of stone so that it is a harder matter to make a man a second time then at first Use 2 Secondly If it be Gods working and drawing whereby a man is wrought to faith learn that as God in working of Miracles did use men as in healing diseases and raising the Dead Paul and Peter c. So God in calling and begetting you to himself and his Son by the Gospel as Paul saith I have begotten you by the Gospel useth the Agency of men even in working Faith and Conversion this I thought good to put in because its clear and that no man might stumble to look for a kind of Enthusiastical Conversion that God should work Faith and Repentance without the use of any means God uses instruments to awaken you and excite you be you excited Behold I stand at the door and knock and God doth not ordinarily convert those whom before he hath not excited convinced and awakened there are instruments used though the power be Gods So as a man that hath a Sore expects not healing from the Cloth that holds on the Plaister but from the Plaister it self I make this comparison to signifie that we are but the Cloth that keeps on the Plaister we do but apply and hold it on Use 3 Thirdly If this be Gods way to bring those that he saves to Christ let it be your way in seeking Salvation to come in to Christ for this is the only way which God hath established and wherein man succeeds Serm. 26 Observ 5 Fifthly That both by the direct word no man can and by the Power of God which goes to the making man come it appears that man is Impotent and Unable of himself thereunto and there is more goes to the converting of a man then is in man himself which I confesse is a point that I pitcht upon before but it follows properly now I am gleaning from the words of the Text what can be further gathered from which observation these three things follow First That man is naturally at a distance from Christ being not in him already by his first birth but is to come unto him Secondly This coming of man to Christ Jesus is a motion or passage from state to state so that indeed no man doth come to Christ but he doth change his estate and condition Joh. 5. 24. he that believeth is pass'd from death to life Oh! that God would make you look out for this transition that you may be sure you stand not still in the first estate wherein you were Thirdly and lastly It follows that man is impotent to his greatest concernment not only for keeping the Law for whole and perfect obedience to God which yet may humble man but also to that on which hangs the great hinge of Eternal life his coming to Christ that so you may be confounded in your selves and quite ashamed Object Now by reason of an Objection that may be raised I shall start out of my way by a degression may some say if God will use instruments in working Faith or Conversion as the word and Gospel-ministry as a Lanthorn that holds out the light it seems to us that they do something therefore it followes if God work by them and they work under God that therefore God is not the Sole worker but these Instruments as working with God so the Scripture uses the Word Answ God doth work by the word and instruments ordinarily but do not deceive your selves we do not use to say the Ax did build this house But the Carpenter that wields and manages it noâ— the pen made the deed or drew the conveyance but the Secretary that used it this is proper in all speech we do not give away the work of the principal agent unto the instrument so neither may we say that the Minister works but instrumentally properly no otherwise then the pen drew the conveyance that we may bring all the honour and glory to God that works in us and therefore let no man look for a sudden enthusiastick conversion a faith wrought in without the ordinary way and means we do not prompt you to look for or to look unto and to say all in short God can bring forth and work faith in the heart of man by himself without instruments as he made the day before he made the Sun so that you see he did not need the Sun to make the day but now in the setled course of his providence he works by man Christ could have brought the Fish to hand to the shore but he would bring them to Peters net that was the usual instrument to catch the Fish so God that can work to bring you to Faith in Christ an extraordinary and easie way yet will bring you to the Gospel net because that 's the means appointed for the catching of the Fish this hinders not that God is the sole worker of Faith and I make it appear by this Similitude God appoints Marriage for the procreation of Children and the prepagation of Mankind and it cannot be in an ordinary way without it but will any man say the Soul is propogated the reasonable Soul is traduced No! you generally say God alone infuses the reasonable Soul into the body of the Child a fit instance to shew that wherein God only works yet there must be means used God drawes to Christ by a powerful work and yet he will have man excited awakened perswaded and he will have the door knockt at by the ministery of man to the end that man may first be made sensible of his own impotency and secondly that he may know what God doth for him that when the means used do not he can with a Key open the heart Thirdly that he may deal with man in a humane may with man as man in a moral way by Counsel and Instruction one man works upon another And doubtlesse God doth ordinarily give the quickening life the life of Faith and Grace when he hath first excited and hewed man by his word at least to make some preparation in man if it be but so farre as conviction goes for conviction is the last work wrought in man foregoing Christ Jesus look on your natural formes if but of a Chicken hatcht of an egge It 's not introduced without preparations and previous works foregoing and that there should be some preparations wrought in man in order to bringing him to Christ doth appear as without the sense of a disease no man seeks to a Physitian and the serpent on the pole would have been of no use unlesse some had been stung to look up to it for remedy these things seem clear to me that there are some previous
works going before and I for my part am of judgment that the preaching of the law used by divines for the humbling and awaking of secure hearts to look out after a Saviour was a proper way that the law as a Corrosive may eat and open the sore and then bring in the Gospel which indeed is the converting ordinance that works faith and the love of God as the poles that plunge the Water do not catch the Fish but the net yet they drive the Fish into that which doth catch them so I say not that the Law doth convert the doctrine of the Law setting home a mans Sins convincing and humbling man doth not properly bring a man in to Christ Jesus or faith in him but drives him to the Gospel-net to seek for refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ and this I speak as to the preparation of a man to Conversion I have hewed them by my Prophets and slain them by the words of my mouth Hos 6. 5. Oh! that we had these words of slaughter among us though I know and grant a man may be wrought upon by the Law that never comes home to conversion by the Gospel Now therefore I will open what goes to this work of Gods drawing or what there is required to this drawing of God in a few things First I will lay down for the opening of this drawing of God this point that you may know whether God hath drawn you Yea or No Man is not ordinarily converted by sudden enthusiasmes he knowes not when or how by sudden raptures but he is ordinarily prepared and subdued by the ministery of the Word as the Soil is plowed and by that fitted and prepared to be sown for no man sowes the Ground that is not prepared by the plough so it is here and this is the work of the exciting knocking awakning convincing Spirit to which belongs conversion and as the natural form hath preparation foregoing so hath the Spiritual form of Grace in the heart of man it were a wonder to see a thing begotten in a night to see the work of faith in an unbeliever the work of Conversion in a knotty weyward Soul wrought in a night that looks like the mushromes of Religion that grow up in our times of a sudden and have no appearance or knowledge of any work that might usher them that way and these preparations are often works of time such as the healing of a sore is It s a rare thing that a sore an inveterate sore should be healed in a night or an houre to which purpose as the plainest one of them I know of in the New-Testament for I know this Point is striven against by a great many that there is no such thing as a previous work precedaneous to a mans Conversion but God drops in suddenly consider Acts 2. 37. the Apostle Peter Preaching When they heard that Doctrine they were pricks unto the heart and said men and brethren what shall we do to be saved and he said unto them repent and be baptized Now to confesse the truth this Text is not a certain President nor doth it follow because these were that all that are brought to grace are brought so to for God is not tied to one and the same president to every man but here went before the full work of Conversion a breaking of the heart there was a griefe and fear of damnation seised upon them there was a desire of Freedom to know the way out and some hope of pardon This is the ordinary ministerial way though as I said before it is no certain president for the Plaister doth not lie so long upon every sore as it doth upon some therefore length of time in Conversion is not in all alike there must be longer work of smart and preparatories on some upon others it lies shorter on and makes quicker work and yet the work may be as well done to now these precedaneous preparations for we speak but vulgarly not accurately of this great point may be considered two waies either as preparatives unto life going before any sparks of Spiritual life begotten in the soul or as latent effects of life already begun as they are preparatives foregoing all degrees of Faith and Regeneration so they may tend to life if they be managed thereunto by God if God so manage this grief this sorrow for sin these wounds so they may tend to life but if they be found in hypocrites in men themselves that God leaves then they will be like an egge that may peradventure be hatcht to a Chicken but if left by the henne will come to nothing so this sorrow grief hope c. that may be wrought in hypocrites by the ministerial call of the word but are not sitten upon will come to nothing they die because they have no root and so are like the grasse in the stony ground for the present its green but it vanishes because it hath no root abiding Secondly if they be latent effects of a secret life already begun which few men know the time of its coming in the knowledg of the time of conversion or dropping in this Spiritual life into the Soul is a hard thing but if these initials be latent effects of some seed sown then they will abide hold out and continue and there is a difference between preparatives going before life and those we call latent effects of a secret life the one being left to your management will fail and come to nothing but if they be effects of life then they will continue and let me give you in this comparison as in the production of man For a spiritual birth much answers the natural birth there may be and are some qualifications of the matter whereof the bodie is made that foregoes the coming in of the Soul and there are some latent effects of the Soul already come in yet when this life came in she knew not peradventure that is the mother but here is the difference if they be effects of a body yet dead without life they may go away and often doe but if they be effects of life then they doe continue and there is growth and increase and a ripening till there be a full birth so t is in the Conversion of man those effects that proceed from a life already begun will hold out and therefore I am sure I am thus farre right on the point but what were those in Acts 2. 37. they were preparatives managed by God for it seems they came to effect did go before an act of regeneration Repent and be Baptized saith Peter God gave the act after that but God managed it so that they came to effect and brought forth repentance which had it been left to man peradventure had not wrought that effect Secondly Regeneration is properly the work of God in a man excited prepared quickned awakened convinc'd find this in your selves come to the threshold before you come into the house there
do not return Secondly There are no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or marks set on this people aforehand to know them by distinctively from the rest of the world until he that owns the sheep doth set his brand upon them in their calling according to his Elective purpose and these be they of better or worser mould be they near or far off in what regard soever they shall come and if they cannot or will not no more then the rest of men they shall be all drawn they shall every one be taught of God in their times by such uncontrollable power as they shall not resist but since this company hath no mark before hand wherby it may be known who shall come to Christ and be drawn therefore learn Infer 1 First All are called by the Word promiscuously for there is a promiscuous calling besides this secret inward call according to elective purpose all sinners are called to repentance to faith and to Christ for in the tenour of the Gospel there is no exception it being given to every creature the condition of the Gospel-covenant is that every one that believes shall not perish but have eternal life Joh. 3. 15 16. Though this be made with all that are outwardly called yet this is not the inward covenant which is pursued and followed by the drawing of God that I have explained I may set it forth by this comparison A King or Soveraign Prince hath a company of Rebels in prison and being minded to pardon some of them he sends and proclaims to them this word if any of them bring and shew him his Privy Signet they shall be pardoned none can but he sends it to some whom he pleases whereby they are inabled to bring it these now are certainly pardoned but yet the Proclamation is to all that can though the King be not bound to send it to all Here is the case the major of the Syllogisme is whosoever believeth shall be saved the minor this but you and you that are in my secret purpose shall believe and therefore you shall be saved here is the outward part of the Covenant proclaimed to all and here is the inward part whereby he drawes some that are known to him whereby they are certainly saved the Covenant is but one though there be two propositions or parts in it Infer 2 Secondly Take heed of that madnesse so I may call it if there be any in this wild age of branding out the sheep of God or marking out the elect before they have calling grace for it is a secret not revealed to men after that it may be said as the Apostle in the 1 Thes 1 4. Knowing brethren beloved your election of God But first he had given those marks whereby he did know them for the Apostle did not know the elect of God by revelation but when the sun is risen that is by marks he saw upon them Inference 3 Thirdly Let it work upon that desperate crew that hang all the care upon this pin God undertakes God will perform therefore sleep securely till he call for there is no intention of the end but with destination of means which we are bound to wait on as much as if there was no election to salvation at all I say as much for the election of man to the end nothing impairs or abates the use of means as appears by Gods calling upon them so that there is no chusing nor election of God but there is also a purpose as powerful to bring the Elect by means to Christ God hath chosen you to salvation that 's the end 2 Thess 2. 13. but this is through the sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth as the means both of them appertaining to one election Ephes 14. Chosen us in Christ that we should be holy holiness is the means for without it no man shall see the Lord and the end is salvation to which we are said to be chosen And therefore let no man hang upon so loose a point the salvation of his soul upon Gods election which he knoweth not but on Gods chusing man unto the end because he chuseth him also to the means and the truth is the means are as much to be used as if there were no election of man unto salvation which I speak now to confirm men in a necessity of the use of means which are to be used as if our salvation did hang upon it as being only to be wrought out by us Inference 4 Fourthly Set your selves with your all and utmost to wait on the saving means of salvation for the gaining of Faith and the coming in to Christ Jesus for they are first in execution God first brings men to them and they must first be made good in you And let me tell you You need not trouble your selves about any thing of salvation but the means that tend unto it for the means is that about which you are to be employed the end follows naturally of it self there is no new thing to be done after the use of means for the accomplishment of the end there needs no further seeking of heaven than that we seek faith in Christ and holiness all your work and imployment is about means to be used and for salvation it self let it follow it will without any new imployment of yours Now for the further handling of this point thus laid down I shall in this method proceed in which I shall be as brief as I can First To remove those rubs at which the Reason of man doth stumble in the conception of this Point Secondly shew the nature properties of this drawing Thirdly How we may know that we are drawn of God or how a Believer that is already brought home to Christ may know that he is drawn of God For those rubs that lye in the way of Reason they are three First That mans act is not assigned to man himself but God as mans coming to Christ is assigned to Gods drawing which is easily resolved For mans act is assigned to man Rom. 10. 10. With the heart man believeth It 's not God it 's not Christ that believeth for us as some fondly speak but mans act is performed by Gods power Ille facit ut creâ—amus For faith God I will cause you to walk in my statutes Ezek. 36. 27. so the hand turns the wheel but it self turns not the hand throws the bowl but it self runs not So it is here God makes man to believe therefore it 's plain the glory of our believing is not ours whose the act is but Gods whose the power is though the act belong to us yet neither the glory nor the power not the power and therefore not the glory Secondly This power of drawing forces the liberty of mans heart and will I Answer There is a constraint of love which is not of force for the Apostle saith The love of Christ constraineth me 2 Cor. 5 14. God draws by the cords of
there are many things whereof women have experience that counterfeit impregnation which is not so So there may be such appearings of believing in a man as give but an uncertain or fals evidence thereof therefore you need know some certain evidences that you are drawn to God for your comfort And First If you be come then you have been drawn this stands upon the evidence of the text the effect shewes the cause for no man can come except the father drawes If the wall shine you may conclude the sunne is up and shines upon it for it would give no light of it self but by reflection if you find in your hearts a willing receiving of Christ Jesus for your Saviour and Lord that you have surrendred and made a deed of gift of your selves to the Lord Jesus to be his certainly you have been drawn by God this light hath shined upon you otherwise you could not reflect it Secondly Is thy faith an inchristing that is a Christ receiving faith is it a marriage faith I call that a marriage faith which accepts of the person of Christ a Saviour and Lord which some call the faith of the person whereby you do not only believe for benefits without him but for the benefiâ—s with him there is a faith in formal hypocrites and such as the very sound of the word begets as we see in all or the generallity of us here in England that live under the sound of the word of the Gospel a kind of faith and opinion begotten in all men of Christ by a general and uncontrolled conviction as those that did believe when they saw the miracles that he did but he did not commit himself to them John 2. 24. But that which is called the faith of Gods Elect in Titus 1. 1. that 's not found in any but they that are thus drawn and is that which he works in man in pursuance of his purpose of election making good the rest of the links of the chain after the first namely effectual calling and Justification and Sanctification which every faith or believing doth not doe every faith you find in men is not in pursuance of this drawing of God as I have described it Thirdly When we can willingly subscribe to the course that God hath taken to save our souls which the most of men do not now the course that he hath taken is in another not in our selves it is in Christ by whom God doth justifie reconcile adopt sanctifie and govern all in Christ A sanctified heart submitting to this course of God is a sign that God hath drawn you and given you some taste of Christ Jesus and is your faith such a believing yea or no then certainly by the victoriousness of it to bring you to this pass it appears to be the teaching of God as it is delivered in 2 Cor. 10. 5. It is powerful to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ For man naturally and of himself thinks very meanly of this way and means of saving men by Christ for so it was in the type at first Israel thought very meanly of Moses when he came into Egypt one that seemed an unlikely instrument to cope with 〈◊〉 and such potent impediments And therefore the Jew hold fast his own righteousness and would not submit Rom. 10. 3. And mans pride makes greatest head and resistance against this way of Salvation that may be until it appear that there must be no Salve or Chirurgerie to apply to the sting of fierie Serpents on pain of death but that unlikely way of looking up to the brazen Serpent on the pole for he that used his own medicine perished and died So when a man is convinced that there is no salve of his own making no medicine of his own applying will serve the turn for a man may die under his medicine as well as under his sinne if he do not fly to this only remedy to look up by faith to Christ Jesus When he is convinc'd of this he will subscribe and give up his hand to God the Lord as it 's said and this submission doth stand in three things First In a contented losse of that which was his gain for every man hath somewhat to leaâ— upon that he may not lie open to the arrowes of the fiery law of God and his own conscience therefore some gâ—in he will have to shelter him and therefore when he can willingly esteem all those excellencies dung and dross and adventure to make himself empty and naked that he may be found in Christ Jesus Phil 3. 8 9. This is a sign of submitting to God as the storm makes the Merchant at Sea to submit he loves his goods but the danger of his life which the storm puts him into makes him heave them all over board It 's good when a man is willing to be a loser of his proud self-sufficiencies or his beloved sins to gain Christ for these are our hardest losses and to make Christ Jesus our gain answerable and valuable to and with all our losses A hard point but 't is a point of submission Secondly In a willing submission to the conduct of Christ as Israel if they will go out of Egypt they must submit to the conduct of Moses and go which way he will lead them for not the shortest but the safest way God leads them wherein he will shew them wonders further miracles then he had shewn in Egypt so this submission to the conduct of Christ in the wilderness that he leads you through where the cross the loss may make you more miserable for Religion for Christ then other men in the world are as the Apostle saith the confession of Christ makes us miserable men in the world miserable for religions sake which we might avoid if we would shun religions if this can be digested by you and there be a sweetning of sowre morsels by the name of Christ it argues well Thirdly In a cordial submission to Christ his wayes especially when they are quarreld by flesh and blood Some men are so bold as to account them foolish others as unreasonable most of us do account them hard and that we shall be contrary to other mens examples or reasons or principles and therefore it is a hard thing to submit to the waies of God without consulting with flesh and blood so as though reasons taken from religion are the strongest with us in any debate or consultation yet there is a propension in our natures to follow the guidance of our own reason until the Load-stone have toucht the Iron and caused it to look to the North point as you use to say till the interest of God have taken place in our hearts to draw them to Christ Jesus then there is a submission to Christ for righteousness and to those waies and Commandements that he injoines us be they never so hard and untractable to flesh and blood Fourthly When we find that God will
though it be it self never so little a spark and unseen if you have such a kind of faith without all question you have been drawn of God for there is a double change that faith makes that shewes the truth of it First relative when mans relation to God is changed by it as having stood in the relation of a stranger unaquainted at a distance he is now made a son a friend as it s said of Abraham he believed and was called the friend of God James 2 23. And then Secondly There is a real change of heart of course of life as if the stream did run in a new channel with as great strength as before in the old heavenly things are set up Christ is prized and valued and this life and all the things of this life have an eclipse put upon them so that as he said I am not I that 's the fifth mark Sixtly God hath powerfully drawn thee to Christ if the knowledg of Christ do draw thee from all competitioning things besides Christ doth not woo in person but by his word his Spirit his virtue hast thou no favourite lust that can overdraw him that dares to stand in competition with thy service and the conduct of the Lord Jesus Is the promise of Christ more powerful with thy heart than the performance of the world his absent glory above the present inducements Art thou willing to be paid for thy service in spirituals and if God will to forbear temporals An admirable temper in a Christian The Apostle observes of Abraham and his seed that came out of their own country and found themselves not to be in the possession of the Land of Canaan saith he they might have returned if they would Heb. 11. 15. but that they would not do they embraced the promises that they saw afar off they took Gods pay as he would pay it though he would pay them nothing in this world they would take out the earthly Country in a heavenly and then it follows in ver 16. God was not ashamed to be called their God not ashamed of such a people as stick to him This is to live upon his word as Elshaddi though he be not known to them by his Name Jehovah I did not perform my promises in being to Abraham but he lived upon me as God Almighty as it 's explained in Rom 4. It 's never known what value and price a man sets upon Christ by saying nay to some slight lust or thing which he can easily part with but by that which is peccatum in deliciis our favourite sin our delight be it friend or worldly content or whatsoever else it 's known to be as the usual old saying is The Rabbits skin sticks at the head it cases off from the rest of the body easily but when it comes to the head there it sticks when God and his favour and our own sin stand in competition it sticks not till it is come to that to which he is married to his favourite When Christ tryed the young man that had spoken great things he doth not instance to bid him do this or that for these things saith he I have done but he demandeth the sale of his possessions Go sell all thou hast and come and follow me there his heart was sorrowful for the Text saith He had great possessions that was his master sin and from that I observe that God will try his people let us hang loose to that for in that we shall be soonest tryed Seventhly It seems to me that we are drawn when the withdrawments of Christ or of the Spirit or the light of Gods countenance do draw us more to seeking and pursuit this is a drawing by withdrawment it s the case of many a soul many times Christ withdraws stands behind the door Gods countenance is hidden well mark the effect and use of this withdrawing doth it draw you more eagerly out in pursuance doth this draw you to a more sharp and vehement seeking that shews some touch of the Load stone hath been that you have tasted some of this graciousness of God if so be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2 3. as an Angler will sometimes pull away the bait to quicken the fish to follow it such are these withdrawments of God from his own people you see an example of it verified in the Church Cant. 5. 6. My beloved had withdrawn himself I sought him She runs out presently after him 8. Lastly When the Name of Christ and the Grace from him and by him received is the strong Argument against sin the strongest motive of duty and obedience the Law of God is a strong obligation but the grace and Mercy of God is the sweetest obligation Stablish me saith David with thy free Spirit Psal 51. with the Spirit of a child so the Apostle gives a notable Argument against sin in 1 Cor. 6. 15. speaking about Fornication Shall I take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot God forbid What 's the genius and strength of the Apostles Argument that a man that is in Christ must consider that himself his body and all the members of his body are the members of Christ shall I prostitute the members of Christ to an harlot God forbid that I should do so so that the possession and title that Christ hath of us is the strongest Argument that can be against sin with a godlyman A Christian hath more Arguments against sin more Motives to obedience than any other man because he is all Christs and all his members as that Text saith are members of Christ he is not his own but the price of anothers blood and therefore let him carry the Name of Christ always in his mind as an excellent Argument against sin So much for the Point Whosoever comes to Christ believing in him doth come by the drawing of God which point would have some Use made of it though the matter all along be useful and practical And first Use 1 How certain those that are elected are of their believing and coming unto Christ by reason of this drawing of God this is a resurrection so it 's called and truly as certain as the resurrection of the body and ordinarily we hold it it certain that there shall be a resurrection of the body it 's as certain that there shall be a resurrection of those that God hath chosen unto Christ though they be for present dead and as the Apostle saith far off nay 't is as certain as the resurrection of Christ when he was dead in the grave and lay under the sins of mankind a terrible great stone to ly under yet he was certain to rise again the third day and the power toward the raising of those that believe is according to the working of the mighty power that wrought in Christ Ephes 1. 18 now it 's said that God loosed the cords of Christs death because it was
not possible that he should be holden of it Acts 2. 24. so shall the cords of thy spiritual death be loosed also if you belong to the election on of grace though you be as dead and inanimate as Christ himself was this will set you free knock off the fetters of bondage from you and all because there is a drawing of God whereby you shall be made able to come for all that the Father giveth me shall come to me Joh. 6. 37. and Christ professes that he hath the power given him that he should give eternal life to as many as God hath given him John 17. 2. And that this is no bolster for desperate security to flatter it self and hang all on that string If I shall be saved I shall appears by the certain means that are used whereby this end shall be effected whereby all that are within this chain shall come and believe Joh. 17. 6. I have manifested thy Name to them that thou gavest me so then say not You shall be saved you know not how for the Name of Christ shall be manifested to you and then he shews that the means used are effectual in and unto such ver 8. I have given them that thou gavest me thy word and they have received it and beleived in me that thou hast sent me them that thou hast given me shall live unto them I have manifested the means and to them they have been effectual these are the persons that are saved and called in time according to a purpose and grace given them in Christ before the world began 2 Tim. 1. 9. And therefore it is certainly effected Use 2 Secondly The people of God do receive grace from God even before they believe in Christ First in order to nature but I speak not of the minute of time What grace may some say before Faith what grace is that I Answer It is a grace to believe a grace drawing them and calling them unto Faith this is the first work this is the motion whereby Faith is begotten in the heart a motion which Faith doth not go before but follow Man doth not begin the work of his own grace for then he should be the first give but who hath given to him first saith the Text Rom. 11. 5. For as learned men observe Faith is given to unbelievers as 't is said God justifies the ungodly Rom 4. 5. true when he is justified he is ungodly therefore it 's said Ephes 2. 5. Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins he quickens us When we lay in our blood Ezek. 16. 6. he passed by and said Live When did he speak the word When we were unbelievers he drew us to come unto and believe in Christ as our Saviour saith When we were under the fig-tree as I may say he saw us So when you were far distant this eye and countenance of God was upon you for good and therefore as Austin saith The will of man doth forego many good works of man for God begins at the will but not all Why which is it that the will of man rectified doth not go before Not it self it doth not begin its own willing for that is first and that is made of God So I may say Faith goes not before all the workings of God because there is a drawing of God that works it as the putting of life into Lazarus was when he was dead in the grave so the first grace that 's given to man is while is in unbelief that grace is to be expected and lookt for with intention and bent of mind from this good and gracious God and therefore as it would have been a disparagement to the Miracle to have said that Lazarus stirred or breathed before Christ said Come forth so all they do extenuate and lessen the drawing and free grace of God that put something some seed of faith into man before God work first For man doth not first come to Christ and then God draw him that 's like the mothers jest with her child that 's down Come to me and I 'le help thee up for then it must up before so 't is as if we jested Rise stir move your selves then I 'le put life into you but God draws and then man comes as the Text saith But then there is a great question that hath not yet been handled for some may object Object There may be some reason given why God gives the second grace after the first as remission of sin to a believer but what is the ground or reason why God gives the first grace This is the great quaere the hard knot to answer to the satisfaction of men Answ I remember St. Austine saith Noli quaerere si non vis errare Do not search for the reason if you will not erre and be mistaken search not for the reason of this which hath no reason but the will and pleasure and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of God God made the Creatures of nothing he made the world so well you acknowledg it Doth God make temporal creatures the bodies of men of nothing And is not the new creature made of as little as the old is But to free you from all quarrels and self-reasoning in this point if you will have a reason I l'e give you an old one I 'le assure you that it is elder than your selves by some thousands of years It was saith the Text 2 Tim. 1. 9. his purpose and grace given you in Christ before the world began and therefore you are called and saved This shews that no man can begin the first grace he may pretend to come unto Christ Jesus himself but he must receive this drawing first that he may be saved there is no mark upon any man that lies in the state of spiritual death by which he can know himself to be one that shall receive the first grace but it 's reserved as a secret in the bosome of God but when the first grace is given and man is drawn to Christ then he may know that he shall be saved true there is means to be used but not a mark to be known by But shall I tell you the bottom of the point there may indeed be a ground for the first grace in that secret-covenant that is between God and Christ for doubtless such a one there is that all the members of Christ those whom God hath given him shall have this grace this new heart and spirit shall be all drawn and learn of God this in the general all that the father hath given to Christ shall come in if I be inclosed within that gracious covenant that God the Father made with the Son I shall certainly be drawn but for any marks of the first grace who these are and how to be known they have none until they be made the children of God for they are by nature children of wrath even as others the Lord only knowes who are his there are means
Proclamation is general the invitation of the thirsty to water wine milk of the loaden and weary unto rest of the willing unto the water of life and the Promise is general to all and every believer and that of eternal life and therefore you may conclude there is an offer of grace made to sinful and wicked men by the Gospel for thou saith the Psalmist of Christ hast received gifts for men yea for the rebellious also that God may dwell amongst them Psal 69. 18. And then Thirdly Which binds all the rest whomsoever God doth call to faith and Conversion by the invitations of his Word and by the pulsations or knocking 's of his Spirit he calls and invites them seriously and in good earnest what think you when Christ saith how often would I have gathered you and when God saith Ezek. 14. 13. I purged thee and thou wast not purged are these things spoken in jest we must not judge that grace is not offered in good earnest by the event that it hath in us for it may be frustrate and without success but judge by the nature of the benefit offered by the excitements afforded and the aids and motions supplyed and by the tendency of them what they mean and in their nature drive at even at the bringing of you to Christ Jesus let no man think with himself that God Tantalizeth man with the offers of his grace and that he is not really minded that they should be received but let this principle be setled and throughly fixt in your hearts that God is in good earnest and means seriously when he woes and invites you to repentance for this principle is of great use for that induces the acceptance the reality of the offerer no man will look on a bargain that is offered him in jest look after a gift though never so rich that is holden forth in a pretence and simulation this will not induce a man to look after grace if he hath this perswasion that God Tantalizeth him with it what man living under the Gospel can stand out and say Lord I would but thou wouldest not I put forth my hand and thou drewest back thine let no man think this to excuse himself upon God this was intended by a Parable Luke 19. 20. of him that had a talent given him who laid it up and did not use it thinking to excuse himself on the temper the austerity of the Master so to put off all blame from himself whereby our Saviour signifies that men would put the fault upon God saith he Master I knew thou wert a hard man that reapest where thou didst not sow therefore I laid up the talent that thou mightest have thy own the Master speaks to him calling him evil servant and retorts the objection upon himself if I were a hard man thou oughtest to have put forth thy talent rather he is deceived that thinks to clear his neglect by fastening a reason for it upon God for there are four things in the Scripture that seem to me to prove these offers of grace in the Gospel to be serious I know not how others may interpret them First The pathetical form that is used of inviting sinners so low sometimes that God doth beseech us to be reconciled God and Christ doth beseech you by us that are his Ministers and Embassadors 2 Corinthians 5. 20. Secondly By the frequent exhortations and amongst the rest for I should speak the whole Bible in a manner to name all that 2 Cor. 6. 1. we beseech you that you receive not the grace of God in vain for it s not offered to you in vain for he saith there is a day of Salvation and that is now And then Thirdly By the expostulations with careless and negligent men for not coming in neglecting or abusing these offers I wonder that you are so soon perverted and carryed away to another Gospel in Gal. 6. 1. And then Fourthly By the promises made and holden forth Rev. 3. 20. I stand at the door and knock if any man will open to me I will come and sup with him and do not all these forms of dealing with man prove sufficiently the reality of the offers of grace to a sinner yea verily and that he doth not dally with men For else First God should seem hereby to deceive men to offer them a purchase and a prize and call and invite them in the Name of his Son Christ and never mean or intend that this grace should be by them received Secondly The messengers whom God sends forth to be woers of chast virgins unto Christ and to bespeak the espousals as the Word is 2 Cor. 11. 1 2. they should be found false witnesses for what would you take him to be that should speak to a man to bespeak a virgin for him whom he never intends or means to have if she would have him And then Thirdly The neglect of this grace might more excusably be made a great deal and would have a greater colour of excuse for they would say there was indeed grace holden forth to them in mockery without any reality that they should receive it but now God finds 〈◊〉 with men and blames them for not acknowledging or not considering that his goodness should lead them to repentance and therefore do despise it as the phrase is Rom. 2. 4. And therefore it must be a plain case that the drift and scope of that goodness is to lead men to repentance and so the whole army of providentiâ—â— dispensations the offers made in the Word the excitements of the Spirit of God as well as other goodness do all speak and tend to the clearing of God of simulation or meer pretence I would it were believed that though you were never so remote and far from this grace and seem to despair that you cannot have it and think that God doth but dally when he makes the offer to you or whatever your apprehensions be settle it in your hearts the offer is real and God is serious and in good earnest wheâ— he offers Christ and grace in the Gospel One great objection there is in this point Quest How can these offers of grace be serious or in earnest when so many thousands called by the Word are not absolutely converted how doth God deal in good earnest in the offer of grace when he doth not absolutely give it and work this Conversion if God had a serious will it would be absolute by power to work that he calls men unto if God were in good earnest that I should be converted and believe in Christ then God by his absolute and peremptory will would give me this grace and work it in me Answ But we answer that the will of God may be serious though it be not absolute and peremptory God may by his serious will will that you repent and yet by his absolute will work it not The great iustance in this point is God had a serious will that